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If Only Wishing Made It So!

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JMJ

 

Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 I move through a number of different Catholic 'circles'. Conservative Modern Catholic, Diocesan Latin Mass, and SSPX Traditional Catholic,

The sedevacantist issue has popped up once in a while in my 40+ years as a Traditional Catholic.

Pope Francis has, in some ways, become a unifying point. I've had to talk some Modern Catholics off the Sedevacantist ledge because Pope St. John Paul II was the only thread of Catholicism that they knew.

So here's my off the top of my head points vs sedevacantism:

  1. When one stands on the judgment that a current Pope isn't the Vicar of Christ, then what is to stop someone else from making the same judgment on previous Pontiffs?  
    1. I know a person who started down that path with Pope B16, and found that Pope JP2 also didn't pass muster. Next fell Pope P12, B15 and so on down the line.  
    2. So where does it stop?  Well with the people I know, last I heard they were home-aloners who isolated themselves from everyone they had previously known.
  2. That a Pope loses the Papacy is a theological opinion.  Not a dogma and not even doctrine.
  3. It is Dogma that the Catholic Church will always have a Vicar of Christ
    1. Decrees of the First Vatican Council (link) Chapter 2 Art 5: if anyone says that it is not by the institution of Christ the lord himself (that is to say, by divine law) that blessed Peter should have perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole church; or that the Roman pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in this primacy: let him be anathema.
  4. The Pope is one half of the Dogma of the Visibility of the Catholic Church.
    1. So without a Pope the Visibility of the Church is affected,
    2. Consequently, to have a sedevacante for decades prompts the question of how can the Catholic Church exist for such a long duration without a core element of its visibility?
  5. It is a Dogmatic Fact that the acceptance of a recently elected Pope means that there were no barriers or impediments to Pope Francis' elevation to the Pontificate of the Catholic Church (i.e. he is the Vicar of Christ).  He is simply the latest in a long list of bad or mediocre Popes that started with Pope St. John XXIII.

So, as a Catholic, in order to not contravene a dogma or doctrine of the Catholic Church we must affirm the following:

  1. That there will be perceptual successors in the primacy over the whole church until the end of the world. (Dogma)
  2. The Catholic Church as a moral agreement (Bishops or Bishops + Faithful) accepted Pope Francis and those before him as Popes. Therefore they were licitly elected and served as the Vicar of Christ. (Dogmatic Fact)
  3. The prolonged absence of a Vicar of Christ impacts the Visibility of the Catholic Church - i.e. one of the Four Marks (Dogma)

Sedevacantists offer up various arguments such as the Vicar of Christ is supposed to be the 'rule of faith' - without explaining the extents of this etc and continue to hold up a lessor doctrine or worse theory to contradict Dogmas or Doctrines of higher authority.

By their logic, there is no 'middle ground'.  The Pope and V2 are either right ... or Pope Francis isn't the Pope and the Catholic Church has failed.

 Whereas there is a third alternative ... that described as Recognize and Resist.  Following the Catechism of the Council of Trent and other teachings - we stand ready to obey legitimate commands of the Vicar of Christ.

P^3

Church Teaching Vs SedeVacantism
Re Blog: Yes Sally, Pope Francis IS the Pope and is in great need of our prayers!
Tradicat - Sedevacantism
Tradicat - Dogmatic Facts
Sedevacantism and Heresy
Sedevacantism Kill Chain - True of False Pope
Everything You wanted to know the Infallibility of the Catholic Church but were afraid to ask about - Part 1
Everything You wanted to know the Infallibility of the Catholic Church but were afraid to ask about - Part 9
Dogmatic Fact or Fancy
Dogmatic Fact or Fancy II
Dogmatic Fact or Fancy III
Decrees of the First Vatican Council - Papal Encyclicals

 

 

 



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