Sedevacantism

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Sedevacantism is a theological opinion held by some Traditionalist Catholics which maintains that the Holy See is currently vacant. Sedevacantists do not recognise Paul VI (1963-1978), John Paul I (1978), John Paul II (1978-2005) or Benedict XVI (2005-) as true popes, due to their alleged public heresy. Most Sedevacantists also refuse to recognise John XXIII (1958-1963) as a true pope.

Sedevacantist should be applied only to those who believe that there is at present no reigning pope, but it is frequently used to include groups, known as conclavists, who have attempted to elect popes (or antipopes) of their own. By definition, sedevacantists oppose conclavism.

The word sedevacantism is derived from the Latin phrase sede vacante, which means "with the see (chair) being vacant" and is used in Vatican documents in the interval between the death or abdication of a pope and the election of a successor.

1 The sedevacantist position
2 The sedevacantist bishops
3 Conclavism
4 Criticism of Sedevacantism
5 Main sedevacantist groups
6 Main conclavist groups
7 See also
8 External links

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The sedevacantist position

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An early aspect of the movement was the publication in August 1971 of The New Montinian Church in which Fr. Joaquin Saenz Arriaga, a Mexican Jesuit, put forward the thesis that Pope Paul VI had founded a new religion distinct from traditional Roman Catholicism. In his 1973 Sede Vacante, Fr. Saenz claimed that Paul VI had forfeited his papal authority by reason of his public and manifest heresy. Saenz's writings gave rise to the sedevacantist movement in Mexico, led by Frs. Saenz, Moises Carmona and Adolfo Zamora; in the United States, led by Fathers Francis E. Fenton and Burton Fraser; and in France, led by Guérard des Lauriers OP.

As with Traditionalist Catholicism in general, sedevacantism owes its origins to the rejection of the theological and disciplinary reforms that were carried out by and following the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Traditionalist Catholics reject the Council primarily because of its teachings on religious liberty and ecumenism, which (they claim) contradict the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church and deny the unique status of Catholicism as the one true religion revealed by God. Traditionalist Catholics also reject new disciplinary norms such as the new rite of the Mass, which they feel undermine or conflict with the historic Catholic faith.

Sedevacantists conclude that the true teaching authority of the church could not decree the reforms of Vatican II and, therefore, those who issued them were not acting with the authority of the Catholic church and therefore were usurpers of valid ecclesiastical authority. Pope Paul VI and his successors had left the true church and consequently lost legitimate authority in the same church.

Non-sedevacantist Traditionalist Catholics have continued to recognise the authority of Pope Paul VI and his successors. They readily acknowledge that the latter have held and taught unorthodox beliefs, but would stop short of affirming that they have been heretics. It is alleged [1] that Pope John XXIII became a Freemason prior to his elevation to the papacy as part of a Masonic plan to take over the Catholic Church, and that he was thus disqualified from the papal office by reason of incurring automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication. Such 'conspiracy theories' are firmly rejected by mainstream Catholics, who regard them as absurd or deluded.

Arguments used by sedevacantists to defend their position include the following:

Most pre-Conciliar Catholic theologians and canon lawyers taught that it is inherently impossible for a heretic to hold the papal office.
Particular provisions of Church law prevent a heretic from being elected or remaining as pope. Paul IV's 1559 Bull Cum ex apostolatus officio stipulates that a heretic cannot be elected Pope, while Canon 188.4 of the pre-Conciliar (1917) Code of Canon Law provides that a cleric who publicly defects from the Catholic faith automatically loses any office that he holds in the Church.

Mainstream Catholics have engaged sedevacantists in debate on some of these points. Fr. Brian Harrison, for example, has argued that the sedevacantist thesis is incompatible with the provisions of canon law - a conclusion which has, in turn, been disputed by sedevacantists. [2]

There are estimated to be between several hundred and several thousand sedevacantists worldwide, mostly concentrated in the United States and Australia, but the size of the sedevacantist movement has never been accurately assessed. Sedevacantists note that Catholic doctrine teaches that the Church is identified by its unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity, and they base their claim to be the true remnant Church on the presence of these four "marks" rather than on the size of their numbers.

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The sedevacantist bishops

Image:Thuc.jpg The ordinations performed by sedevacantist bishops are regarded as valid by mainstream Catholics, provided that the bishop in question has himself been validly ordained. According to Catholic doctrine, any bishop can validly ordain any other man. Ordinations within the sedevacantist movement are, however, performed contrary to the wishes and procedures of the "official" Church, and are hence regarded as being illicit or illegal. Indeed, a bishop who ordains (or, strictly speaking, consecrates) another man as a bishop without papal permission incurs automatic excommunication. Canon law permits Catholics to take the sacraments from illicitly ordained priests and bishops only in circumstances of dire need.

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 Antônio 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 the Autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church (a newly formed group, generally regarded as schismatic by the Eastern Orthodox churches) to sedevacantist Roman Catholicism in 2002.

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 so-called "Thuc line" of consecrations is particularly complicated, since Archbishop Ngo consecrated a considerable number of men to the episcopate, and these in turn consecrated many more men.

The third category of sedevacantist bishops consists of those clerics whose consecrations are generally regarded as outright invalid, even by other sedevacantists, because their consecration cannot be traced to validly ordained bishops who were part of the Apostolic Succession. The consecrations of Lucian Pulvermacher and Gordon Bateman for the True Catholic Church fall into this category.

One Palmarian Catholic Church bishop, Michael Cox, who traced his consecration to Ngô Ðình Thuc Pierre Martin (who had consecrated the bishop who consecrated him), tried to ordain Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor as a priest and ordained Fr. Pat Buckley as a bishop in the 1990s. O'Connor assumed the clerical name Mother Bernadette Mary for a time. Cox and Buckley later parted company, with Buckley accusing Cox of simony for accepting a payment to cover his hernia operation from O'Connor.

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Conclavism

Image:Pius XIII.jpg As noted above, some groups have put forward their own popes in opposition to those in Rome, making them "conclavists" rather than "sedevacantists" in the strict sense of the word.

In 1990 Teresa Stanfill-Benns and David Bawden called for a conclave to elect a pope. They sent their request around the world but only received six respondents. On July 16 1990, the six gathered in Belvue, Kansas in the United States and elected Bawden who took the name Pope Michael I.

Another conclavist group in Italy elected Victor von Pentz as Pope Linus II in 1994.

In October 1998, the United States-based true Catholic Church elected the Reverend Lucian Pulvermacher, a traditionalist priest, as Pope Pius XIII. This group accepts the claim that Pope John XXIII became a Freemason in 1935 while serving as papal nuncio to Turkey. It has been established, however, that Pius XIII has engaged in the practice of divining with a pendulum since his seminary days - a practice which was prohibited by Pope Pius XII and allegedly caused him to incur automatic excommunication even before his ordination to the priesthood. This revelation led some of his supporters to withdraw their allegiance from him.

A large majority of sedevacantists is staunchly opposed to conclavism, and it has been claimed that many conclavist groups were not sedevacantist before the election of their own 'popes'.

For a full list of popes elected by conclavist groups, see the article Antipopes.

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Criticism of Sedevacantism

A number of criticisms of sedevacantism have been advanced by mainstream Catholics:

Mainstream Catholics maintain that, according to standard Catholic doctrine, the Catholic Church must be a visible, identifiable body that is literally catholic, in the sense of universal ('for all people'). This is seen as being incompatible with the sedevacantist claim that the true nature of the Catholic Church has been hidden from the world for fifty years.
The Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus adopted at the First Vatican Council in 1870 states that the visible Church must have a perpetual visible Head, and that that visible Head is the Roman Pontiff, in perpetual and unbroken succession from St. Peter. This is seen as being incompatible with the sedevacantist claim that the papal line of succession has been broken since 1958 (or 1963).
It is claimed that the Catholic doctrine of the indefectibility of the Church excludes the possibility that the Pope - together with the vast majority of the other Catholic bishops around the world - would succumb to heresy and fall from office. A key text here is Christ's declaration to St. Peter: 'You are Peter ('the Rock'), and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it' (Matthew 16.18).
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.
It is claimed that sedevacantists do not distinguish adequately between matters of discipline which can be reformed at any time - such as the use of Latin and of the Tridentine Mass - and infallible dogmatic teachings.
Some sedevacantists are accused of indulging in the logical fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc 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.

The more serious sedevacantists have published refutations of such criticisms. Their counter-arguments include the following:

Sedevacantists deny the claim that they implicitly deny the dogma of papal infallibility as defined at Vatican I. On the contrary, they maintain they are the fiercest defenders of this doctrine, since they teach that the Apostolic See of Peter, under the rule of a true Pope, cannot promulgate contradictory teachings.
Sedevacantists maintain that they do not deny the catholicity or indefectibility of the Church. They note 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. Mainstream Catholics reply that these sede vacante periods are transitory in nature, whereas sedevacantists believe that the absence of a Pope has become a permanent feature of the Church's structure. They further argue that Pastor Aeternus teaches that the perpetual presence of the Bishop of Rome, not merely his office, is an essential characteristic of the Church (the document states that St. Peter must have 'perpetual successors' in the pontificate).
Sedevacantists recall that, during the 40-year Great Western Schism, there was serious uncertainty 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. Mainstream Catholics reply that there was never any doubt that one of the claimants was truly the Pope.

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