Sedevacantism

Sedevacantism is the term commonly used to denote the belief, held by a minority of Traditionalist Catholics, that some or all of the men generally recognized as Popes since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958 (Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI) have not truly held the papal office, and have hence been antipopes. The word is derived from the Latin phrase "sede vacante", which means "while the See is vacant" and is used in Vatican documents in the interval between the death or abdication of the Pope and the election of his successor.

Mainstream Catholic criticisms of sedevacantism

Catholics in communion with the Church led by Pope Benedict XVI naturally reject the claims of sedevacantists, and advance the following arguments against their position:

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Sedevacantism is not United (Unity)

Mainstream Catholics reject sedevacantist claims of unity as mere partisan rhetoric on the grounds that there are many groups of sedevacantists, with few or no formal ties to each other (and there is a perception that members of these groups are apt to fall into schism from each other almost at the drop of a hat). Claims of unity advanced by conclavists are regarded as particularly specious, since each conclavist groups has its own religious hierarchy and claims exclusive rights to the name of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

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Sedevacantism is not Holy (Sanctity)

Sedevacantists appear to the Catholic mainstream to be lacking in holiness because of their harsh rhetoric. It is further claimed that holiness can be seen to be absent in conclavist groups, since every conclavist group somehow "happened" to elect its principal organizer, regardless of prior ordination or lack of connection with the historic episcopate, as Pope. This (allegedly) causes conclavist groups to be clustered around a small number of like-minded individuals who are more inclined to work for the promulgation of their own views than for the glory of God.

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Sedevacantism is not Universal (Catholicity)

Mainstream Catholics argue that the Church's catholicity (universality) means precisely that: the true Catholic Church is universal (for all people) and visible. Sedevacantists, to the contrary, argue that the true nature of the Catholic Church has been successfully hidden from the world for nearly fifty years and that only they have uncovered it, against a plot (usually Masonic or Jewish in origin) to destroy it. Mainstream Catholics consider this to be a heretical position, citing in their support the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ adopted at the First Vatican Council in 1870, which states that the visible Church must have a visible Head, and that that visible Head is the Vicar of Jesus Christ (Vicarius Christi), the Roman Pontiff.

Related Topics:
Masonic - Jewish - First Vatican Council - 1870 - Vicar of Jesus Christ

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A related argument advanced by mainstream Catholics is that the notion that the Pope - together with the vast majority of the other bishops around the world - would succumb to heresy and fall from office is inconsistent with the doctrine of the indefectibility of the Church. A key text here is Christ's declaration to St. Peter in the Gospel of St Matthew: 'You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it' (16.18).

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Arguments about the perpetuity of the Papacy

Sedevacantists counter accusations that they deny the catholicity or indefectibility of the Church by noting that there is a sede vacante period, during which there is no visible Head of the Church, between the death of every Pope and the election of his successor. In this period, they say, the Church is not abandoned and has not defected, but is protected, because nothing can be changed until a new Pope has been chosen. They also recall that, during the 40-year Great Western Schism, great uncertainty existed as to which of the two (eventually three) claimants to the papacy was the true pontiff, with even saints taking opposing sides in the controversy.

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Mainstream Catholics reply that the analogy with the Great Schism is misleading, since there was never any doubt that one of the claimants was truly the Pope. In addition, they note that the sede vacante periods between successive papacies are transitory in nature and are not part of the ordinary constitution of the Church, whereas sedevacantists believe that the absence of a Pope has become a permanent feature of the Church's structure. They further argue that the Vatican I Dogmatic Constitution previously mentioned teaches that the perpetual presence of the Bishop of Rome, not merely his office, is an essential condition of the Church:

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::Therefore, 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. - Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus (emphasis added)

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Mainstream Catholics affirm that, while sedevacantist rhetoric would have it that the Catholic Church has suddenly become Protestant, it is in fact the sedevacantists themselves - with each group practising its own interpretation of pre-Vatican II Catholicism and persistently denying traditional Catholic teaching on the primacy and indefectibility of the See of Rome - who have followed in the Protestants' footsteps.

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Sedevacantism is not Apostolic (Apostolicity)

Another claim made by mainstream Catholics is that no sedevacantist bishop exists who has been consecrated both validly and licitly. The resulting lack of connection to the historic episcopate is seen as resulting in an absence of apostolicity: sedevacantists have, it is claimed, broken the line of apostolic succession, which is vital to Catholic worship (lex orandi, lex credendi).

Related Topics:
Historic episcopate - Apostolic succession

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The bishops that have existed within the sedevacantist movement since its inception can be divided into three categories. The first category consists of bishops consecrated within the "official" Catholic Church who were subsequently persuaded to the sedevacantist position. Within this category fell the Vietnamese archbishop Ngô Ðình Thuc Pierre Martin (who may have been reconciled to Pope John Paul II before his death in 1984) and the Puerto Rican bishop Alfredo F. Mendez, both of whom are now dead. In addition, the late Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer of Campos, Brazil is reported to have embraced sedevacantism, despite his association with the non-sedevacantist Society of St. Pius X, and a Ukrainian bishop named Yuri Yurchyk converted from Eastern Orthodoxy to sedevacantist Roman Catholicism in 2002.

Related Topics:
Ngô Ðình Thuc Pierre Martin - Alfredo F. Mendez - Antonio de Castro Mayer - Society of St. Pius X - Yuri Yurchyk - Eastern Orthodoxy - 2002

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The second category, into which most present-day sedevacantist bishops fall, consists of men who were consecrated within the sedevacantist movement by Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc or Bishop Mendez, or by bishops consecrated by them. The "Thuc line" of consecrations is particularly complicated, since Thuc consecrated a considerable number of men to the episcopate, and these in turn consecrated many more men. The Thuc and Mendez consecrations are generally regarded as valid both by sedevacantists and by mainstream Catholics, though the latter view them as illicit and maintain that it is therefore forbidden under canon law to take the sacraments from them except in a moment of dire need.

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The third category of sedevacantist bishops consists of those clerics whose consecrations are generally regarded as outright invalid, even by other sedevacantists. The consecrations of Lucian Pulvermacher and Gordon Bateman for the true Catholic Church fall into this category.

Related Topics:
Lucian Pulvermacher - Gordon Bateman - True Catholic Church

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Criticisms based on Canon Law

The mainstream Catholic theologian Fr. Brian Harrison has argued that the sedevacantist thesis is incompatible with the provisions of Catholic canon law.

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To begin with, Pope Pius XII's apostolic constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, issued in December 1945, provided that, if any cardinal entered a conclave in a state of excommunication, his excommunication would not prevent him either from casting his vote or from being elected as pontiff himself. Therefore, even if Angelo Roncalli had been excommunicated at the time of the 1958 conclave, he would not thereby have been disqualified from election to the papacy. The same provision has in substance been included in all papal legislation governing papal elections since the fourteenth century.

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It is quite common for sedevacantists to appeal to Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law in support of their position. (In 1983, John Paul II issued a new Code of Canon Law, but its authority is naturally not accepted by sedevacantists.) Canon 188.4 provided that a cleric who "publicly defect from the Catholic faith" (a fide catholica publice defecerit) would automatically lose any office which he had held in the Church. It has been contended, however, that this provision applied only to clerics who carried out acts, such as joining a Protestant church, which absolutely indisputably amounted to a renunciation of the Catholic faith: it cannot (it is claimed) be used to call into question the authority of a Pope who clearly intends to continue in the papacy but has taught propositions which appear to some Catholics to be heretical. Support for this interpretation is sought from the other paragraphs of Canon 188, which all related to "tacit resignations" from ecclesiastical office: paragraph 3 referred to priests who accepted promotion to offices incompatible with their present positions, paragraph 5 to priests who got married and paragraph 6 to priests who, in contravention of canon law, enlisted in the military.

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Further support for the mainstream Catholic position is sought in Canon 2264, which provided that acts of jurisdiction carried out by excommunicated persons would be invalid only if the person concerned had been formally sentenced to or been declared to have incurred excommunication. Since Catholic teaching holds that no-one on earth can issue such a sentence or declaration against the Pope, the argument runs, the acts of an excommunicated pontiff would have to be regarded as valid exercises of papal authority - though such acts would certainly be illicit and displeasing to God. (This canonical argument can be paralleled by a scriptural one: in Chapter 23 of St. Matthew's Gospel, Jesus bound his disciples to obey the Pharisees in all things except for sin, and the same principle arguably applies with regard to the commands of an excommunicated pontiff.)

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Another argument based on the distinction between invalidity and illiciety which has been advanced against the sedevacantist thesis is that, by the sedevacantists' reckoning, numerous medieval and Renaissance Popes whose actions and elections were arguably quite illicit would fall to be retroactively declared antipopes. If this were the case, the papal line of succession would have been broken long before the latter part of the twentieth century.

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Sedevacantists sometimes state in their defence that a decisive majority of pre-Vatican II theologians who considered the question (most notably St. Robert Bellarmine) accepted that a Pope who fell into heresy would forfeit his office. Mainstream Catholics would reply that the private teachings of individual writers cannot be used to overturn the provisions of Church law.

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Other criticisms

• Typically, sedevacantists are accused of citing as infallible documents such as papal encyclicals, bulls, homilies and other sources which have traditionally been held not to be sources of infallible teachings.
• Against sedevacantist criticisms of reforms carried out within mainstream Catholicism since the death of Pius XII, it is argued that practices such as the traditional use of Latin and of the Tridentine rite of Mass are matters of discipline which can be reformed by the Church at any time and must not be confused with infallible dogmatic teachings.
• Some sedevacantists are accused of indulging in the logical fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc (coincidental correlation) by attributing problems which the mainstream Church has experienced in the Western world since the reforms to the reforms themselves rather than to the general decrease in religiosity in the West.
• It has been argued that the "prooftexting" logic which sedevacantists (allegedly) use to defend their position is analogous to that used by anti-Catholic Protestant evangelists to defend their claims that the Catholic Church is non-Christian or Satanic.