Sedevacantism and Heresy

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JMJ

I've observed three core reactions during this crisis of the Catholic Church.

1. The Pope can't be wrong, therefore this is the New Springtime
2. The Pope is infallible in certain conditions and there is a problem with many things that have been said, done and written, during and after the Second Vatican Council (even in the Council doc).
3. The Pope can't be wrong, this stuff is wrong, therefore he isn't Pope.

Of course there are a spectrum of responses in between, but these are the key elements.

The 1st group holds the words of the Pope et al as impeccable. Here, let me get you a Koran to kiss...

The 3rd group holds that they've all been heretics and lost their office.  There is also a spectrum within this group.  

One answer is that they are very poor judges of heresy.  The link below provides some reasoned thought that, I'm happy to say, is completely consistent with Church Teaching.

Canon law blog: Its not impossible just very difficult to glean heresy from conduct

Futher along, there is a new book that have been published analyzing the errors involved in the 'sede' thesis.  Not the least of which is that the sedevacantists have to reimagine the doctrine of dogmatic facts in order to rationalize their position.

Akacatholic (Louis Verrecchio): Interview Salza Siscoe Unmask Sedevacantism

I noticed that Fr. Cekada has already made some comments on the following section of the book quoted on a discussion forum:

Quote from: Christus Rex on December 18, 2015, 03:41:26 PM
In the so-called “definitive article,” the priest actually claims that if a person attends a Mass in which the Pope’s name is included in the canon, he will receive no sacramental grace. He and his followers claim that the only way you will fulfill your Sunday obligation and receive grace from the Mass, is by attending a Mass that excludes the legal Pope’s name. Needless to say, they cite no authorities whatsoever to support the absurd position. We can only imagine how these clerics browbeat their congregations with such nonsense. This Sedevacantist bishop and priest will no doubt be surprised to learn that an ecumenical council of the Church explicitly condemned the practice of excluding their Patriarch’s name (or Pope if the Patriarch of the West) from the Church’s liturgies before a formal judgment by the Church.

In answer, Fr. Cekada states:

No surprises here, Rex! The "sedevacantist priest and bishop" have been around for a long time, and have heard just about every counter argument, so:
(1) Invoking the 10th Canon of Constantinople is a circular argument, because the very question being argued is "Are the post-Conciliar popes true popes (Patriarchs of the West) in the first place?" No pope, no sweat!
(2) In 2006 Benedict XVI renounced the title "Patriarch of the West." The Vatican explained that it "appeared for the first time in the 'Annuario Pontificio' in 1863... the title 'Patriarch of the West,' never very clear, over history has become obsolete and practically unusable." Are Messrs. Siscoe and Salza really crypto-sedes who don't recognize Benedict's authority to renounce the title?
If stuff like this is the best the R&R legal bar can do in 700+ pages, answering them will not only be like shooting ducks in a barrel, but also lots of fun!

As usual, Fr. Cekada has missed the point. First they are missing the context (read: they have a very strong confirmation bias) of the quotation.  Second it is ludicrous to say that the renouncing of the title Patriarch of the West (a synonym for the Pope)  equates to the obsolesence of point #1.

Anyway you get the idea.

As I've explained to friends who have been tempted to be scandalized into Sedevacantism by Pope Francis (and others), let's keep it straight:

Hunter: 

... if the person of the Pope were uncertain, it would be uncertain what Bishops were in communion with the Pope; but according to the Catholic faith, as will be proved hereafter, communion with the Pope is a condition for the exercise of the function of teaching by the body of Bishops (n. 208) ; if then the uncertainty could not be cleared up, the power of teaching could not be exercised, and Christ's promise (St. Matt, xxviii. 20; and n. 199, II.) would be falsified, which is impossible. ... it is enough to say that if the Bishops agree in recognizing a certain man as Pope, they are certainly right, for otherwise the body of the Bishops would be separated from their head, and the Divine constitution of the Church would be ruined. (Hunter, 1894) (ref1, ref2, 

Ott:

Dogmatic Facts (facta dogmatica). By these are understood historical facts, which are not revealed, but which are intrinsically connected with revealed truth, for example, the legality of a Pope or of a General Council, or the fact of the Roman episcopate of St. Peter. The fact that a defined text does or does not agree with the doctrine of the Catholic Faith is also, in a narrower sense, a dogmatic fact." In deciding the meaning of a text the Church does not pronounce judgment on the subjective intention of the author, but on the objective sense of the text (D 1350: sensum quem verba prae se ferunt). (p9)

Billot (provided by my 'opponents')

Source: Withheld for moral reasons

Sed quidquid demum de possibilitate vel impossibilitate praetatae hypothesis adhuc sentias, id saltem veluti penitus inconcussum et extra omnem dubitationem positum firmiter tenendum est: adhaesionem universalis Ecclesiae fore semper ex se sola infallibile signum legitimitatis personae Pontificis, adeoque et exsistentiae omnium conditionum quae ad legitimitatem ipsam sunt requisitae. Neque huius rei a longe repetenda ratio. Immediate enim sumitur ex infallibili Christi promissione atque providentia : Portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam, et iterum: Ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus. Idem namque foret. Ecclesiam adhaerere pontifici falso, ac si adhaereret falsae fidei regulae, cum Papa sit regula vivens quam Ecclesia in credendo sequi debet et semper de facto sequitur, uti ex dicendis in posterum luculentius adhuc apparebit. Equidem permittere potest Deus ut aliquando vacatio sedis diutius protrahatur. Permittere quoque potest ut de legitimitate unius vel alterius electi exoriatur dubium. Permittere autem non potest ut Ecclesia tota eum admittat pontificem qui verus et legitimus non sit. Ex quo igitur receptus est, et Ecclesiae coniunctus ut corpori caput, non est amplius movenda quaestio de possibili vitio electionis vel defectu cuiuscumque conditionis ad legitimitatem necessariae, quia praedicta Ecclesiae adhaesio omne vitium electionis radicitus sanat, et exsistentiam omnium requisitarum conditionum infallibiliter ostendit. (De Eccelsia Christi, third ed., 1909, vol. 1, pp. 620-621.)

And the translation provided by Da Siveria:

Finally, whatever you still think about the possibility or impossibility of the aforementioned hypothesis [of a Pope heretic], at least one point must be considered absolutely incontrovertible and placed firmly above any doubt whatever: the adhesion of the universal Church will be always, in itself, an infallible sign of the legitimacy of a determined Pontiff, and therefore also of the existence of all the conditions required for legitimacy itself. It is not necessary to look far for the proof of this, but we find it immediately in the promise and infallible providence of Christ: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it”, and “Behold I shall be with you all days”. For the adhesion of the Church to a false Pontiff would be the same as its adhesion to a false rule of faith, seeing that the Pope is the living rule of faith which the Church must follow and which in fact she always follows, as will become even more clear by what we shall say later. God can permit that at times a vacancy in the Apostolic See be prolonged for a long time. He can also permit that doubt arise about the legitimacy of this or that election. He cannot however permit that the whole Church accept as Pontiff him who is not so truly and legitimately. Therefore, from the moment in which the Pope is accepted by the Church and united to her as the head to the body, it is no longer permitted to raise doubts about a possible vice of election or a possible lack of any condition whatsoever necessary for legitimacy. For the aforementioned adhesion of the Church heals in the root all fault in the election and proves infallibly the existence of all the required conditions. Let this be said in passing against those who, trying to justify certain attempts at schism made in the time of Alexander VI, allege that its promoter broadcast that he had most certain proofs, which he would reveal to a General Council, of the heresy of Alexander. Putting aside here other reasons with which one could easily be able to refute such an opinion, it is enough to remember this: it is certain that when Savonarola was writing his letters to the Princes, all of Christendom adhered to Alexander VI and obeyed him as the true Pontiff. For this very reason, Alexander VI was not a false Pope, but a legitimate one. Therefore he was not a heretic at least in that sense in which the fact of being a heretic takes away one’s membership in the Church and in consequence deprives one, by the very nature of things, of the pontifical power and of any other ordinary jurisdiction.”
(nts: I appears that the english translation is greater than the latin)

St. Alphonsus de Ligouri

“It is of no importance that in past centuries some Pontiff was illegitimately elected or took possession of the Pontificate by fraud; it is enough that he was accepted afterwards by the whole Church as Pope, since by such acceptance he would have become the true Pontiff. But if during a certain time he had not been truly and universally accepted by the Church, during that time the Pontifical See would have been vacant, as it is vacant on the death of a Pontiff”.

Van Noort

Since it was established in the volume, Christ’s Church, that the Church’s infallible teaching power extends to matters connected with revelation and that its infallible authority deserves an absolutely firm assent, the only question which remains is what name to give that assent and how to describe its nature. These points will be discussed in just a moment.
Meantime, notice that the Church possesses infallibility not only when she is defining some matter in solemn fashion, but also when she is exercising the full weight of her authority through her ordinary and universal teaching. Consequently, we must hold with an absolute assent, which we call “ecclesiastical faith,” the following theological truths: (a) those which the Magisterium has infallibly defined in solemn fashion; (b) those which the ordinary magisterium dispersed throughout the world unmistakably proposes to its members as something to be held (tenendas). So, for example, one must give an absolute assent to the proposition: “Pius XII is the legitimate successor of St. Peter”; similarly (and as a matter of fact if this following point is something “formally revealed,” it will undoubtedly be a dogma of faith) one must give an absolute assent to the proposition: “Pius XII possesses the primacy of jurisdiction over the entire Church.” For — skipping the question of how it begins to be proven infallibly for the first time that this individual was legitimately elected to take St. Peter’s place — when someone has been constantly acting as pope and has theoretically and practically been recognized as such by the bishops and by the universal Church, it is clear that the ordinary and universal magisterium is giving an utterly clear-cut witness to the legitimacy of his succession.

While we may not like the Pope's since Pius XII, if one accepts the above doctrines, then one has no reason to deny that the Pope's since P12 were legitimate.

P^3

Tradicat: Dogmatic Fact of Fancy