Conference in Australia
Full Audio: Bishop Sanborn destroys Recognize-and-Resist Position
Memo to all adherents of the recognize-and-resist position: The have-your-pope-and-beat-him party is over.
On January 7, 2017, Bishop Donald J. Sanborn visited Brisbane, Australia, and gave a theological conference on Sedevacantism and its ecclesiological rival, the so-called “recognize-and-resist” position, whose main proponent is the Lefebvrist Society of St. Pius X. According to “recognize-and-resist”, often abbreviated simply as R&R, Jorge Bergoglio (“Pope Francis”) and his five predecessors in the Vatican are to be accepted as real Catholic Popes, but — here comes the minor rub — each believer must sift their every act of teaching and governing for what may conform to Catholic Tradition in it and reject all the rest; otherwise, one runs the risk of becoming infected with their Modernist religion to the eternal peril of one’s soul.
For some reason or other, this bizarre theological position is what most people who call themselves “traditional Roman Catholics” subscribe to, and most of them are firmly convinced that it is the ultimate criterion of orthodoxy in our day. We have published numerous posts and podcasts on this web site demonstrating this position to be false (see our Sedevacantism page here), and now we are excited to be able to add yet another powerful bundle of ammunition to our arsenal.
In a one-hour talk entitled, “Why Recognize-and-Resist is not Catholic”, Bp. Sanborn provided a devastating refutation of the popular but very dangerous R&R stance. The audio is available in full here:
“Why Recognize-and-Resist is Not Catholic”
(by Bp. Donald J. Sanborn / Jan. 7, 2017)
To prove his case, Bp. Sanborn uses copious magisterial documents from unquestionably true Popes, quotes from an eminent traditional Catholic theologian, and appeals to right reason. His Excellency even demonstrates that the R&R position was maintained in essence by none other than hell’s apostle himself, the apostate Swiss priest Hans Kung. Presented in his typical lucid style, Bp. Sanborn leaves absolutely no doubt that the recognize-and-resist position, no matter how well-intentioned its adherents may be, is not at all compatible with Catholic teaching on the Church, on the Magisterium, and on Papal Authority. Therefore, R&R must itself be resisted and rejected.
The following is a list of the documents from which His Excellency quotes in the conference. A link to each document is provided insofar as it is available online. As you look up each quote, please keep in mind that the wording of the English translation used by Bp. Sanborn may differ somewhat from the wording in the translations linked below.
- Pope Gregory XVI, Apostolic Letter Perlatum ad Nos (1841) – English: excerpted in Papal Teachings: The Church, n. 186
- Pope Pius IX, Apostolic Letter Tuas Libenter (1863) – English: excerpted in Denz. 1679-1684
- Pope Pius IX, Apostolic Letter Non Sine Gravissimo (1870) – English: excerpted in Papal Teachings: The Church, nn. 330-331
- First Vatican Council (Pope Pius IX), Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus (1870)
- Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Quartus Supra (1873)
- Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Quae in Patriarchatu (1876) – Latin: Acta Sanctae Sedis, vol. 10, pp. 3-37; English: excerpted in Papal Teachings: The Church, nn. 433-434
- Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Sapientiae Christianae (1890)
- Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Satis Cognitum (1896)
- Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Mortalium Animos (1928)
- Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis (1943)
- Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Humani Generis (1950)
- Mgr. Joseph C. Fenton, “The Doctrinal Authority of Papal Encyclicals” (1949)
The Society of St. Pius X has a strong presence “down under”, whereas there is only one resident sedevacantist priest in the entire country. Bishop Sanborn’s visit, which besides Brisbane also included Melbourne, provided great joy and consolation to the country’s real traditional Catholics.
Bp. Sanborn is rector of Most Holy Trinity Seminary in Brooksville, Florida. He is a frequent guest on various radio programs produced by True Restoration, most notably the popular monthly Francis Watch broadcast. In 2004, His Excellency engaged in a public debate with Dr. Robert Fastiggi, a representative of the Novus Ordo religion, regarding Vatican II’s ecclesiology. The passionate debate and a follow-up conference can be watched here.
For more free audios published by Most Holy Trinity Seminary, including weekly sermons by various truly Catholic clerics, access the seminary’s sermon & podcast page here.
To access more content by or about Bishop Sanborn on Novus Ordo Watch, please click here.
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Good talk by Bp Sanborn. An aside, I visited the St Gertrude the Great site yesterday and according to Bp Dolan (dated a few days ago), Fr Cekada’s health has taken a favorable turn.
I was here for the Melbourne talks. Super great speaker and a brilliant mind. We had a few SSPX people show but this talk wasn’t given in Melbourne. Thanks for posting.
Thank you. I had been misinformed and have now corrected it. Approximately how many people were in attendance in Melbourne?
Um, maybe 40. not sure. We have it recorded and some guys are working on the editing now. Should have it out soon hopefully.
Did anyone transcribe this discussion?
I did a rough transcription of the major sections beginning around the 48:00 mark:
‘The only thing which justifies the position of the traditionalists in their systematic refusal of Vatican 2 and its reforms, is the fact that these reforms are not Catholic and lead to the destruction of souls. But if they are not Catholic, then those who have promulgated them, cannot possibly be bearers of Catholic authority, since if they were, they would have been incapable of promulgating such a thing for the Catholic Church.
Real popes don’t promulgate false doctrines. Hence the Lefebvre group
is in the impossible position of resisting the authority of the Catholic Church
in matters of doctrine, discipline, and liturgy which are the effects of the 3
essential functions of the Hierarchy – the functions of teaching, ruling, and
sanctifying and which are the basis of the 3-fold unity of the Catholic Church – which is unity of faith, unity of government, and unity of communion.
To resist the Catholic Church in these matters is a spiritual suicide since adherence to the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation. If it is permissible to resist the Church in doctrine, discipline, and worship then in WHAT is the Church to be obeyed?! What is the authority of St. Peter if it can be ignored in these matters?! And if the Church can err so badly in
promoting something that is contrary to its…sacred traditions…where is its
infallibility?! Where is its indefectibility?! Where is the assistance of the Holy Ghost,the Spirit of Truth?! And everything from the mouths of the Holy Popes?!
Consequently, ‘Recognize-and-Resist’ is false since it leads to denial of the indefectibility of the Church! This is pure modernism! The true indefectibility of the Church in these times rests not in with ‘sifting’ the teaching and the laws of the Catholic Hierarchy (so-called ‘Catholic Hierarchy’) but in denouncing those who have deviated from the Faith as being false shepherds…that’s where the indefectibility lies.
And such is the true path to the restoration of order in the Church, because it is impossible that the whole Church be deceived. It is impossible that the Catholic Faith disappear from the face of the Earth.
And they must be rejected as false shepherds because they give us false doctrine! For we cannot associate with this modernist ‘Church’…the modernist hijacking of the Church’s institutions.
There is no possible ‘Third Way’. Just as there is no possible substantial alteration, augmentation, or diminution of the Deposit of Revelation – and that is, either He is the Pope and we must obey Him and accept everything he says with internal assent and faith…Or, we must say that this is a deviation from the Faith and reject them (the modernist Hierarchy) as false shepherds. There is no Third Way! The only 2 Catholic positions are those 2.
The Novus Ordo is either Catholic or it is not. I firmly hold that it is NOT Catholic…And therefore hold that any system that claims that the Novus Ordo has been given us to by the authority of Christ – which is the position of ‘Recognize-and-Resist’ – is objectively blasphemous and ruinous of the Church’s indefectibility. Thank you for listening.’
I could listen to him talk all day.
Excellent talk with infallible references. Why, when the Truth is so clear, do confused (c)atholics refuse to at least listen to sound teaching? Will not our Lord Jesus Christ kill the wicked one with the Spirit of His mouth? May God have mercy on a people who beleive lying and have not the love of Truth!
I happen to agree with Bishop Sanborn’s arguments, but a counter idea I had, and one that a conservative or a r&r may have, is: if it is unthinkable, ultimately, that Jesus would give us teaching that was pernicious or evil, wouldn’t it be equally or even more unthinkable that he would allow an evil or pernicious pastor to take the reins of power? It seems to me that the sedevacantist may do well to confine his argumentation to unassailably proving the heresy of papal claimants, however messy and stormy that may be, than to argue the case backwards, as this talk does, because in the end authority ultimately comes through Peter anyway.
As a matter of strategy, I do not understand the sedevacantist fixation it seems on the SSPX. There are other seas to go casting about in, and I think FSSP/Indult folks are far more inclined to accept sedevacantism, because most are not already confirmed in their own position..many are confused and bewildered in this age of Bergoglio. Is their some reason for this, like priestly or layfolk attrition, or is it simply that many sedevacantist priests were once connected to the SSPX?
Poapratensis, that is extremely observant of you. The SSPX is the real target of the sede movement. Just listen to the sermons of most of their priests and you will see an inordinate fixation on “Bernie Fellay” and his “selling out”. To your other concern regarding whether or not Jesus would allow an evil pastor; according to St. John Eudes “the most evident mark of Gods Anger and the most terrible castigation he can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics’ who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds”. So yes God will allow the “operation of error” and punish us by sending bad priests. Our Blessed Mother said that in the end Her Immaculate Heart will Triumph “and the Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me” . There will have to be a Pope or else Our Lady is mistaken. Our Lady of Fatima Pray for Us!
That’s a bizarre thing to say. I rarely hear a sermon in which the SSPX or Bp. Fellay are mentioned. But yes, the SSPX is one target of sedevacantists, and ought to be, as any error that threatens the faith must be. You fail to distinguish bad clergy from non-Catholic clergy. We have addressed the ‘bad Popes’ argument here: http://novusordowatch.org/2014/03/bad-popes-argument/
As for Fatima, you can never justify a theological position by appealing to a private revelation. Francis doesn’t somehow win by default. Just because we need a Pope doesn’t mean that he, an apostate from the Faith, IS that Pope. It is not enough to argue we need a Pope — if Francis is ineligible by divine law to be Pope, then he CANNOT be Pope. Besides, no Catholic is OBLIGED to believe in Fatima. While I certainly do and the Church has declared the apparition worthy of belief, you can never use a private revelation like this to determine your theological position. A Catholic who chooses not to believe in Fatima, commits no sin, as long as he agrees that the apparition is worthy of belief.
Bad, Non-Catholic, I believe the term ravening wolves used by St. Matthew and in “private revelation” needs no distinction. The quote from St. John Eudes also contains the words from Jeremiah “return ye revolting ones..and I will give you priests according to MY Heart”. The inference being that we will have priests whose hears are not in accordance with Our Lords. As far as Fatima and private revelation, I believe that Our Lady and Our Lord asked something specifically from the Pope and until this is done we will continue to see this loss of Faith and of Souls. That request adds much more weight to this private revelation. You say no Catholic is obliged to believe in Fatima. Fatima is much more in line with scripture, sacred tradition and much more worthy of belief than sedevacantism. How many recipients of private revelation have been elevated to the Altar as saints? In my opinion, Sedevacantism is just as much a novelty as the Novus Ordo and just as damaging to souls. I am no fan of Francis. I pray that his time comes to an end very soon. Our Lady of Fatima Pray for us!
If you think that there is no essential distinction between non-Catholic and bad Catholic, you are in heresy, Sir. I can’t believe you’re even saying this.
“If any one saith, that, grace being lost through sin, faith also is always lost with it; or, that the faith which remains, though it be not a lively faith, is not a true faith; or, that he, who has faith without charity, is not a Christian; let him be anathema.” –Council of Trent, Session 6, Canon 28
“Nor must one imagine that the Body of the Church, just because it bears the name of Christ, is made up during the days of its earthly pilgrimage only of members conspicuous for their holiness, or that it consists only of those whom God has predestined to eternal happiness. It is owing to the Savior’s infinite mercy that place is allowed in His Mystical Body here below for those whom, of old, He did not exclude from the banquet. For not every sin, however grave it may be, is such as of its own nature to sever a man from the Body of the Church, as does schism or heresy or apostasy. Men may lose charity and divine grace through sin, thus becoming incapable of supernatural merit, and yet not be deprived of all life if they hold fast to faith and Christian hope, and if, illumined from above, they are spurred on by the interior promptings of the Holy Spirit to salutary fear and are moved to prayer and penance for their sins.” –Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis, n. 23
I’m sorry, but until you understand this distinction, there is really no point in discussing anything else. May God bless you.
You ‘believe’. “You say no Catholic is obliged to believe in Fatima. Fatima is much more in line with scripture, sacred tradition and much more worthy of belief than sedevacantism.”
This would be easy if it were so. Fatima has been, perhaps, the second most exploited revelation, before the most repugnant ‘revelation’ of VII.
The sedevacantist conclusion contradicts no Catholic teaching, dogma, real Pope, Roman Rite…nothing one is bound to believe if one would be Catholic.
Fatima has become a distraction. That’s not to diminish the Truth of Our Lady’s discourse, but to make sure Her discourse is not not ripped from Catholic truth for the purpose of Novus Ordo exploitation.
Sonia and the Editor have provided some enlightening info here. I would appreciate it, however, if you could address my question. Why the sede fixation, it seems, on the SSPX? I happen to think that indult types, like I formerly was, are more likely to embrace the sede thesis. I am confident in asserting that there are far more of us, too. If sedes really want to expand their ranks, and obviously they should, then why not go after the real problem, the Novus Ordo and its ignorant adherents?
Now being a sede, I am assailed with polemics against folks I didn’t know about or only vaguely knew about, like Bps. Fellay and Williamson. These men may be wrong, but they aren’t the big problem.
Despite being a “trad” for over a decade, I was never exposed to any sede thought until the promotional run-up to True and False Pope, which accidentally exposed me to Fr. Cekada and Novus Ordo Watch. It is amazing to me how effectively sedes are shut out of the forum of ideas in greater tradland. Some of our former FSSP parishoner friends that have asked where we went can’t pronounce “sedevacantism” and have never even heard of the idea of some Catholics believing that there is no currently reining pope.
If you browse Novus Ordo Watch, I think you will see that we go after all of them, not just the SSPX. All souls matter. What I focus on in a particular post is determined by a number of things, including the timeliness of the post vis-a-vis current events, what resources I have at my disposal, what I can complete more quickly, etc.
The SSPXers are easier to convert in the sense that they can at least see the horrible problems in the Vatican II Church. The indulterers are easier to convert in the sense that at least they understand (more or less) the Catholic teaching on the papacy. Typically I think one would go for the lowest-hanging fruit first, but since the SSPXers are about to be converted to indulterers (via the SSPX-Rome deal that seems imminent), this may be a moot point soon. 🙂
The “real” problem is the SSPX as much as it is the Novus Ordo. I don’t think we want to separate them into “real” and “not so real” or even “fake” problem. It’s all cut from the same cloth (leaving aside people’s personal dispositions, good will, etc.). At least that’s how I view things.
I understand what you say here. In one sense they are easier to convert, and in another no so much. From a psychological perspective, though, I do believe confusion or bewilderment reigns in the indult crowd, while SSPX are more sure that they are right (which indeed makes them more dangerous in that sense). Being an “indulter” as you put it, I approached sedevanctism with little prejudice, though. I would assume the opposite with SSPX.
OK. You are certainly welcome to propose any strategies you may have in mind with regard to the indult crowd. I’m listening.
I think it could begin with addressing the resignationists. For example, we’ve had about a half dozen SSPX related articles lately, and not one addressing Rorate Caeli, Barnhardt, or Verrucchio, all of which seem to be on that track. It is where pretty much all my indult friends are tracking that care about the pope (many simply don’t care, which is alarming). To my thinking, a resignationist is already a functional sedevacantist, and when Ratzinger dies, they will be a sedevacantist, so these folks are ripe for the message, or at least I would think so. Perhaps not. I’ve sent a couple emails to Barnhardt and she wrote back to them (surprisingly) with sort of perplexing responses. She didn’t deny that she was a “functional sedevacantist,” and said we are in a big mess to be sure, but didn’t want to take the next logical step, of realizing that an authority acting with power given to him by Christ cannot possibly have that authority if he is proffering false teaching.
One of the biggest obstacles, which I mentioned before, is simply getting out there. There is sort of a wall that these people have built and gatekeepers like Michael Matt’s forum admin patrol and expel anything that could possibly lead people back to a sedevacantist website or to that line of thinking, with some notable exceptions: they let Fr. Cekada’s posts stand a few months ago! Lifesitenews is sort of doing the same thing, too, I’ve noticed.
Thank you for your feedback. You may not be aware, but we have a number of articles that deal with Verrecchio, Barnhardt, and Rorate Caeli, although maybe not lately. However, I do not think there is much of a difference between them and the SSPX, between them and the R&Rs who still think Francis is Pope (Rorate Caeli clearly holds Francis is Pope, btw, and Verrecchio has not expressed certainty regarding the status of Ratzinger since Francis). Although we have in common with Ann Barnhardt the belief that Francis isn’t Pope, she rejects him (to my knowledge) because she thinks Ratzinger’s resignation was invalid, not because he’s a public apostate.
In any case, here are some articles on Barnhardt & Verrecchio:
http://novusordowatch.org/2016/06/ann-barnhardt-dumps-francis/
http://novusordowatch.org/2016/11/verrecchio-francis-antipope/
Let me quote from the latter post something that I think is crucial to understand: “Of course, we do not mean to suggest that Louie is now a sedevacantist, at least not in the sense in which the term is typically used (namely, the position that the “Popes” since 1958 have been illegitimate). As far as we know, Verrecchio still espouses the same Gallican-like “resistance” errors as before, he has simply set a de facto “enough is enough” limit for himself. The theology behind recognizing Francis as an Antipope only now, and precisely now, is itself disastrous.”
Agreed. It’s odd how Gallicanism is resurgent, and in the USA and not only France.
http://novusordowatch.org/?s=fatima
Rarely? Bp. Dolan dropped Williamson’s name three Sundays ago. And Fr. Cekada dropped Williamson’s name in his last sermon two Sundays ago, which was brilliant by the way, and the first semon in my life that prompted me to go home and Google around to figure out what he meant about Williamson. Honestly, if we are sedes, why do we care what Williamson or Fellay think? Is there something I am missing, like folks that waffle back and forth? Is it just respect of the true ecclisiastical tank they hold?
OK, so that’s two sermons in three weeks. (I haven’t heard either one, by the way.)
Why do we care what Bp. Fellay or Bp. Williamson think? Because they are spreading grave errors and are causing great harm to souls. Part of proclaiming and defending the Faith is to refute errors. Williamson and Fellay are very dangerous.
I agree, but they are certainly less dangerous than Bergoglio or the local N.O. ordinary, right? It just seems out of proportion to me, so I figured there would be a reason for it. In some ways, at least folks in the SSPX are receiving sacraments from true priests and bishops, while almost all local N.O. clergy are likely laymen. This is terrifying to me to think of the thousands of serious trads who haven’t been reached by sedevactism, who are all confessing to laymen.
I think it depends on how you look at it. You might say the Novus Ordo is less dangerous, *in the sense* that people are adhering to what they in good faith believe are the legitimate Catholic shepherds. You can turn this in so many different ways. Another example: The SSPX instills in people schism and heresy under the guise of traditional Catholicism. Thanks to the SSPX, so many people who think they are traditional Catholics think that submission to the Pope consists only in recognizing him as a legitimate Pope and praying for him and adhering, at best, only to his infallible declarations. They think that the Church’s indefectibility means that there will always be a Pope. They think that what is magisterial is determined by whether it is right or wrong. They think an excommunication is no big deal as long as you are convinced it’s unjust. They think one can just usurp the power of the Holy See and establish one’s own marriage tribunals (as the SSPX does). It’s a disaster. The SSPX has done as much damage as the Novus Ordo Sect, just in a different area. And look at Bp. Williamson, who said, in essence, that you can go to the New Mass if it nourishes your faith and doesn’t scandalize anyone. Unbelievable!
The SSPX, by the way, has some *invalid* priests. Some of their priests are converts from the Novus Ordo and were not reordained.
I personally like to focus on the SSPX because I find them the easiest and most interesting to refute.
A point of claification: was not Abp. Thuc excommunicated and reconciled by and with the N. O. hirearchy?
Essentially the same as SSPX?
He was “excommunicated” by the Vatican. As for the “reconciliation” with the Vatican, if I recall correctly, this was only claimed by the Vatican and never by Bp. Ngo-dinh-Thuc himself. But regardless, we are talking about the actions of one man, not about a group of sedevacantists.
Thank you for clearing this up. It was somewhat ambiguous from what I read.
In reference to the statement that “they think that what is magisterial is determined by whether it is right or wrong.” Well, isn’t that honestly what sedevacantists think, anyway, when it really gets down to it?
On the surface, sedevantism is a bizarre idea, even though it is logical, compelling, and accommodates all we definitely know. These are reasons why I accept it. I say bizzare because I am confident in asserting that Pius XII and his predecessors didn’t teach sedevacantism to anybody (not that they had a reason to), and I am confident they would have been surprised, to say the least, of such an idea. Ditto any ordinary Catholic pre-1958. In fact, sedevacantism, as it is, almost demands literacy which few Catholics had until mass literacy became normal in the last 200 years or so. Furthermore, religiously tolerant civil laws (like those ushered in by the 1st amendment of the US Constitution) are practically an antecedent to public sedevacantisn. In a confessional state, we’d have been imprisoned or worse, I think.
One already needs to have a pretty concrete idea, in their own mind at least, of “what Catholicism is” and “what Catholicism is not” before one’s mind would even go wandering in search of some way to reconcile what claims to be the Catholic Church (what sedes call the Novus Ordo) with what used to be the Catholic Church (before October 1958). In this, all trads, be they SSPX, Sede, or Indult seem to be united. And in this sense, one would think, trads are more likely to embrace the sedevacantist thesis than non-trads. We are people looking for answers. I would not say, however, that your typical liberal or even many “conservative” Novusordinarians are this way. They simply have not been exposed to enough historical content of Catholicism to raise questions in their mind, or in the case of most liberals, they simply don’t care. If it wasn’t for the fact that my paternal grandfather lived as brother and sister with my grandmother for most of their marriage (obviously, not all their marriage) because he was abandoned by his first wife which could not be located (and so it could not determined if she was alive or dead) and therefore the church wouldn’t grant an annulment that I even began to look into these matters in April 2016 when Amoris Latetia came down as a magisterial, pope-issued document demanding the assent of faithful (and which any catechism would prove, despite what Raymond Burke maintains). I therefore had some knowledge of the historical content of Catholicism. I knew, for example, how seriously indissolubility of marriage was taken, and I knew that Amoris Latetia contradicted this (from a plain reading of the relevant parts). So I went looking for answers. I didn’t before this point because I simply didn’t have a definite historical reference in my mind contradicting current teaching, though there were many questionable ones I knew about (I maintained a “give it the benefit of the doubt position” as long as it wasn’t binding on me to my understanding, how American of my thinking!).
So, to get back to my original point, we are sedevacantists not because the Church taught it, we are sedevacantists because we have sought an explanation for how something that is handed down to us that is claimed to be magisterial which obviously isn’t. All the living Sedevacantist clergy today, that I know of, came to the thesis in the 1970s, between one and two decades after the events that have created the problem began, and in the same way: they were given something they knew contradicted what was always taught, and went looking for answers. Obviously, other very knowledgeable folks that were confronted with the same problem then didn’t arrive at the same conclusion: bishops like Ottaviani, Siri, Bea, etc. come to mind. So, in the end, we all have to make a judgment of what is claimed to be magisterial is right or wrong. Sedevcantists go the next step and realize that anyone who claimed to be an authority and proffers something as binding which is wrong can’t be a true authority (that comes from Christ, Who of course is Truth, which excludes contradiction). SSPX prefers a constant sifting process that is illogical, confusing, and novel to Catholic theology, and which, as you (and Bp. Sanborn point out), perverts things.
>> In reference to the statement that “they think that what is magisterial is determined by whether it is right or wrong.” Well, isn’t that honestly what sedevacantists think, anyway, when it really gets down to it? <> On the surface, sedevacantism is a bizarre idea, even though it is logical, compelling, and accommodates all we definitely know. These are reasons why I accept it. I say bizzare because I am confident in asserting that Pius XII and his predecessors didn’t teach sedevacantism to anybody <> In fact, sedevacantism, as it is, almost demands literacy which few Catholics had until mass literacy became normal in the last 200 years or so. <> In a confessional state, we’d have been imprisoned or worse, I think. <> One already needs to have a pretty concrete idea, in their own mind at least, of “what Catholicism is” and “what Catholicism is not” before one’s mind would even go wandering in search of some way to reconcile what claims to be the Catholic Church (what sedes call the Novus Ordo) with what used to be the Catholic Church (before October 1958). <> So, to get back to my original point, we are sedevacantists not because the Church taught it, we are sedevacantists because we have sought an explanation for how something that is handed down to us that is claimed to be magisterial which obviously isn’t. <> Obviously, other very knowledgeable folks that were confronted with the same problem then didn’t arrive at the same conclusion: bishops like Ottaviani, Siri, Bea, etc. come to mind. <> So, in the end, we all have to make a judgment of what is claimed to be magisterial is right or wrong. <> Sedevcantists go the next step and realize that anyone who claimed to be an authority and proffers something as binding which is wrong can’t be a true authority (that comes from Christ, Who of course is Truth, which excludes contradiction). <<
I must clarify here: it is not the being wrong itself that is the problem but the being contrary to the Faith (or to anything else that we know to be binding). In theory, the authentic Magisterium could propose something it will later revise or go back on (I don’t think this has ever happened, actually), and that could be incorrect, but it could not be something that is against defined doctrine. The Church would not be credible if she could teach certain doctrines and then also teach doctrines that contradict the former.
God bless you.
Thanks for the reply. I meant Bacci not Bea, by the way. Still bad how it went down, nonetheless.
I still think for most people a referencing must occur where they need to recognize what they are being told is not what Christ and His apostles thought. In their heart, they need to recognize their duty (as you rightly point out) to seek a resolution to satisfaction. The problem is few people know the faith well enough. And even when they do, like Ottaviani, etc. many make the wrong decision.
The S?PX – they do not believe canonizations are infallible, hence the “?” – are sometimes targets of sedevacantist clergy for several reasons: 1) they are one of the oldest and most recognizable organizations resisting to some degree the New Mass and new religion, 2) they have the largest organization of clergy, 3) they have the most followers world wide.
The attack on them is not due to jealousy, but out of concern for souls. What good is it to resist the New Mass, if your justification for resisting is also heretical? What good is it to reject the heresies and errors of the new religion and to disobey its proponents, when the principles you use for your rejection and your disobedience are themselves heretical and schismatic? One might as well jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.
There are some simple souls in the S?PX who instinctively recognize the New religion along with its New Mass as non-Catholic. They want nothing to do with the Novus Ordo. They want to be Catholic. However the Lefebvre-ist clergy are teaching them a perverted, heretical, and objectively schismatic version of “Catholicsm” in order to justify their stance.
As time goes on, there will be fewer and fewer converts from Novus Ordo-ism. If they haven’t gotten fed up yet with what has been happening, then when will they? The bulk of the folks in the Novus Ordo are perfidious.
But, there is a large group of folks in the S?PX who want to be Catholic, but who have been deceived by the clergy of the S?PX. I would venture to say the same kind of situation existed at the time of the Great Schism. I would think there were many souls lost to schism due to the leadership of evil clergy in the east, at that time. So today, the S?PX is feeding their followers all kinds of false doctrines and perversions of the faith.
We must preserve the Catholic faith in its entirety. We cannot concoct novelties to justify our rejection of the novelties of the new religion and the proponents of it.
That is why the S?PX is sometimes targeted. They are doing the most harm to the souls who are most disposed to retaining the Catholic faith in these terrible times.
I have been wondering lately if the prophecy of Our Lady when she talked about a “Bishop in White” could suggest that this person was dressed as a pope but still only a bishop. Why did she use the phrase “bishop in white” instead of “Pope” or some other title that signified the Vicar of Christ?
We have no certainty that these words were even spoken by Our Lady. This was a text released by the Vatican in 2000 that was manifestly not the Third Secret.