What of Reality?
An answer to "What of the sedevacantists?"


Catholics seeking to understand the devastation of Holy Church, brought about by the Modernists since the death of Pope Pius XII, often come across this term "sedevacantism." Unfortunately, when they do it is generally presented as some type of swear-word. Often it is labelled "schismatic" and very often all manner of nonsense is presented as "proof" that it is false.

The Society of Pius X ("SSPX" hereafter), which seems to need to deny "sedevacantism" as proof of its real union with the Modernists in Rome, is most active in this field. On a semi-regular basis anti-sedevacantist articles appear in its journals, and its Web sites generally carry at least one piece attacking this position. This article is an answer to one such example, titled, What of the sedevacantists?

It begins:


This is a fair, if too brief, presentation of one argument used to demonstrate that the Vatican "2" "popes" have not in fact been popes at all. However it omits any mention of other, equally powerful, reasons which count against the claims of these frauds to the submission of Catholics. One of these is that Holy Church, our mother, cannot give stones when her children ask for bread. But that is precisely what the sect of Vatican "2" gives. Therefore it is not the true Church. Likewise, it is a dogma that Holy Church cannot fail in those things pertaining to her mission. That is, she is indefectible. For example, she cannot present false sacraments, false doctrine, and evil laws, to the faithful. These things amount to essential defections from truth. Therefore the sect of Vatican "2" is a false church.

What ought to be impressed upon Catholics is that it is not enough to see that the heresies of Karol Wojtyla are really heresies, and to be rejected. It is also necessary for Catholics to be able to identify the true Church of Jesus Christ. For this Church is a "city seated on a mountain, which cannot be hid." The SSPX are fully prepared to admit that the Vatican "2" church really is a false sect, and not to be confused with the true Church. But that doesn't explain where the true Church is. It merely leaves a vacuum.

Some SSPX functionaries have resorted to the singular claim that Karol Wojtyla is head of two churches - the false, new one, and the true, original. How that theory squares with reason, tradition, the necessary visible unity of the Church, or even common sense, is for them to explain. That it is unsatisfactory is obvious. Either Wojtyla is a Catholic, and thus a member of Christ, or he is not. "No man can serve two masters." And no man can be a Catholic and a non-Catholic at the same time. Either Karol Wojtyla is a member of Christ, and the visible head of His Church, or he is a member of Satan, and the visible head of the Vatican "2" sect of perdition.

The article proceeds:

While it is true that some former "sedevacantists" have elected "popes", it is fatuous to present this as though it argued in favour of the claims of Karol Wojtyla. An equally valid procedure would be for "sedevacantists" to point to the behaviour of some of those who accept Wojtyla, such as "Fr." Matthew Fox, or "Bishop" Weakland. Does the behaviour of these heretics bear any relationship to the position espoused by the SSPX? Would it be reasonable to infer that because both Matthew Fox and Archbishop Lefebvre accepted Karol Wojtyla as pope, the behaviour of Fox is indicative of what this position leads to? Frankly, accepting Wojtyla has led many to behave in the manner of Fox, but it would be a gross injustice to suggest that the SSPX are likely to end that way. And so it is with the rejection of Wojtyla - it has led some poor souls to foolish actions. That does not mean it is a false position.

One of the classic distinctions used against the fact that the Holy See is currently vacant is presented in this article. It states:

This distinction, between formal and material heresy, is well known by traditionalists. This is because it is the old standard, wheeled out by all in defence of the Vatican "2" apostates. And this distinction is applied both to diocesan bishops and to Karol Wojtyla. Now if it were restricted to the case of Wojtyla then that would be bad enough, for it affords him no protection at all. But to apply it to other purported office-holders is to flatly contradict the Code of Canon Law. In the true Catholic canons, as codified by Holy Church in 1917, we see that Canon 192, section 1, states: "A person may be unwillingly deprived of, or removed from, an office, either by operation of law or by an act of the lawful superior." We see immediately that offices can be lost without the action of a superior at all. Canon 188 defines how this might happen. It legislates: There are certain causes which effect the tacit resignation of an office, which resignation is accepted in advance by operation of law, and hence is effective without any declaration. These causes are : … (4) if he has publicly fallen away from the Catholic faith… (My emphasis).

What then are we to make of the SSPX assertions that if offices were lost automatically then "societies would collapse"? What indeed? Where, we might ask, do they get their ideas? The truth is that a heretic, schismatic, or apostate, loses his membership in Holy Church by his own unhappy act, as all canonists and theologians have taught. And if he happens to possess any offices when he takes this step then he loses those too, without, as the Code states, any declaration.

Evidently, it is implicit in this traditional theology and jurisprudence that we can know a true heretic. Otherwise these canons make no sense. If we can't know a heretic or schismatic, because of this oft-cited "material/formal" distinction, then in fact these Canons are lies. This is because the SSPX argument is that a declaration is in fact necessary to prove formal heresy or schism.

But apart from Canon Law, all of history testifies that Catholics can indeed know heretics and schismatics. Pope Pius IX affirmed that: "no one, under any pretext, can believe that they are innocent of the sin of schism, even if they had not been denounced as schismatic by Apostolic authority." (Quartus Supra, Jan. 6, 1873). This declaration was made by Venerable Pius IX two years after the Armenian schism began. "Socially", "theologically", "canonically" and in every other way, the schismatic Armenians were not Catholics any more, without the need for any intervening declaration. And "no one, under any pretext" could believe otherwise. Except, it seems, the anti-"sedevacantists".

A further example of this same teaching is given by St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, quoting Pope St. Celestine: "The authority of Our Apostolic See has determined that the bishop, cleric, or simple Christian who had been deposed or excommunicated by Nestorius or his followers, after the latter began to preach heresy shall not be considered deposed or excommunicated. For he who had defected from the faith with such preachings, cannot depose or remove anyone whatsoever." (De Romano Pontifice, lib. II, cap. 30.) (My emphasis). Similar examples could be multiplied, but these two popes, along with the Code, ought to suffice.

Perhaps it is also worth pointing out that the reason given by the SSPX for their refusal to accept Catholic teaching is that it would lead to bad results. They assert that were we able to know when somebody has lost their office, "societies would collapse." The fact is that this argument runs in exactly the opposite direction, to the opposite conclusion. In times when good Catholics have not been led to this dreadful confusion, against their Catholic sense, they have always cut off communion with public heretics, without waiting for a formal judgement from Rome. Consequently, for example during the Arian crisis, the "society" known as the Catholic Church did not "collapse." It merely survived without its buildings and most of its hierarchy. However, what we witness around us today is far worse than that terrible period, precisely because most Catholics have not seen the need to reject the heretics along with their heresy. If anything could cause the collapse of the Catholic Church, then this dreadful ignorance would be it.

No doubt many, faced with these proofs that they have been misled by those they trust, will ask how these principles apply to a claimant to the papacy. Without presenting the teachings of many doctors of the Church, and thus unduly lengthening this paper, the answer is that the tradition of the Church is that manifest, or "public", heretics cannot be popes. So, if Karol Wojtyla ever was pope, evidently he is not now. Bellarmine presents this consensus of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church as follows: a "Pope who is manifestly a heretic ceases by himself to be Pope and head, in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church; and for this reason he can be judged and punished by the Church."

Our opponents continue:


This argument is truly a wonderful thing! What is asserted here is that these men are so different from us, so infected with Modernism, that they are no longer capable of thinking clearly enough to hold the Catholic Faith. Are they insane, we might reasonably ask? "Oh no!", our opponents would answer, knowing that insanity results in the automatic loss of offices just as surely as heresy, schism, and apostasy do. What is here described is a totally unique syndrome. It is something never before witnessed by Catholics, and receives no attention in Catholic theology or law. This alone should be enough to disgrace it in Catholic circles. It even has a name - Bishop Williamson of the SSPX has called it "theological insanity". It is, apparently, a novel phenomenon only found among a particular breed of men - "Modernists." Modernism, we are told, leads by way of a false philosophy to the point where a man is incapable of conceiving of the dogmas of the Faith correctly. Consequently, when we see that he no longer believes them we are to attribute this to an inability to comprehend them, not to pertinacity. I respectfully suggest that never, in the field of theology, has so little been said so unconvincingly with so many words. Frankly, if it proves anything then it proves that Karol Wojtyla and his fellow Modernists are incapable of being Catholics, because they are incapable of forming the necessary dispositions for an act of faith.

Turning from the Society of St. Pius X, to the saint himself, we find that this question has already been dealt with. Pope St. Pius X wrote, in Pascendi, of the Modernists: "Although they express their astonishment that We should number them amongst the enemies of the Church, no one will be reasonably surprised that We should do so, if, leaving out of account the internal disposition of the soul, of which God alone is the Judge, he considers their tenets, their manner of speech, and their action." In other words, even Modernists are heretics, and knowable as such by us, because we do not take into account what remains internal, but assess only those things which are in the external forum. If the judgement of formal heresy really did require knowing the internal dispositions of the heretic's soul, then it would be true that we laymen and simple priests could never make such a judgement. As a matter of fact, it would also be true that Holy Church herself could never make such a judgement, because as Pope St. Pius X has taught, even she doesn't judge what remains internal.

Returning to our opponents:

The mention of the unity of Holy Church in an argument in favour of Karol Wojtyla is not a little surprising. The unity of Holy Church is both internal and external, as she, being formed of men, is both spiritual and material. The theologian Van Noort explains how the outward profession of the faith is one of the visible signs of membership in the Church. Without it one cannot remain a member. "Public heretics (and a fortiori, apostates) are not members of the Church. They are not members because they separate themselves from the unity of Catholic faith and from the external profession of that faith. Obviously, therefore, they lack one of the three factors - baptism, profession of the same faith, unity with the hierarchy - pointed out by Pius XII as requisite for membership in the Church." (Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II, "Christ's Church" - Mercier Press, 1958) pp.239. Van Noort also quotes Lercher, as follows: "Finally there does not appear any reason why occult heretics more than other sinners should be excluded from the body of the Church. Heresy is not the gravest of all mortal sins : hatred of God is greater. Therefore if other very grave sins do not exclude from the body of the Church, neither does occult heresy. Public heretics are excluded not because of the gravity of their fault, seeing that even material heretics [i.e. innocent] are outside the Church. The reason for their exclusion is the nature of the Church as a society which demands a unity in the profession of the same Faith. - Lercher, op. cit., p. 239, e." [My emphasis. The citation of Lercher is from "Institutiones Theologiae Dogmaticae".] This is standard Catholic theology. Whoever wrote the SSPX arguments obviously hasn't read any of that.

Answering the challenge, then, as to where the Church is, we can say with confidence that she consists of all those who are baptised, profess the true faith, are subject to her authority, and have not been excommunicated and declared vitandus. Certainly where it is impossible to be subject to a diocesan bishop, or a pope, those who demonstrate their willingness to obey the laws of Holy Church can be said to visibly subject themselves to her authority. That the Church does not "disappear" every time a pope dies, proves that her visibility does not consist solely in the pope. Furthermore, it hardly helps the visibility of Holy Church to assert that it consists in all those who claim the name Catholic, whatever they profess. That is to posit an invisible church, which is a heresy. The truth is that the papacy exists to preserve and fortify the unity of the Church. The disunity evident in the Vatican "2" sect should be sufficient evidence for an educated Catholic that Karol Wojtyla is no pope. One thing is sure - insisting he is pope based on an argument from the unity of the Church is like insisting that Clinton is President of the USA based on the necessity for moral uprightness in the citizenry. No, if Wojtyla is pope it is in spite of the unity of the Church.

That this interregnum is the longest in history is possibly the only serious objection to the sedevacantist position. It is true that a permanent interregnum is impossible, for that would constitute an essential defection. However this apparent difficulty pales into insignificance before the massive difficulties involved in thinking Karol Wojtyla is really the visible head of Holy Church. And, with a little thought, it can be seen that this difficulty is only apparent, not real. During the Great Western Schism it was morally impossible for Catholics, other than a few cardinals, to know who the pope was. This was because the cardinals lied about the papal election(s). Even some subsequently canonised saints chose what historians now believe was a false pope, while others adhered to that "pope's" opponent. Both cannot have been right. The Schism lasted over forty years, and was healed by a desperate measure - a council of which the majority of members voted in favour of the heresy of conciliarism. That is, the error that a general council is superior to a pope. Out of this confusion came a true pope, with the previous claimants either resigning or being "deposed." The principle applied by most theologians at the time and since, was that a doubtful pope is no pope.

Whatever else may be said about the history of that terrible time, it does provide a precedent for a situation in which the Church had no visible head. Even if it is insisted that one of the claimants was the true pope, as some have argued, he was not "visible" in any meaningful sense of the term. There were saints who couldn't "see" him.

Another element of that drama which is of interest to us, is that the council which healed the schism was basing its "solution" on a heresy, as mentioned. Three "popes" concurrently claimed Peter's Chair, and the council both asserted its "right" to depose them all, and fully intended to act in accordance with that "right". No doubt the pressure of that threat was at least in part responsible for the resignation of the man whom historians generally believe to have probably been the true Roman Pontiff. The council deposed the other two. Holy Church has never settled the question of who was in fact the true pope.

Consequently, what amounted to a grossly irregular and really wrong proceeding produced the outstanding result of healing a schism that had threatened the very basis of the unity of Holy Church - the Papal Primacy. Hope should never wane among loyal Catholics that He Who is with us always, will by the intercession of the Immaculate Heart, heal the wounds which Satan has inflicted on His spotless bride in our day also.

For some reason not immediately apparent, our opponents see fit to raise this very question of how a pope will appear, as though it counted against the "sedevacantist" fact, but not against their interesting claims.

The question presents itself: If some kind of miracle is evidently necessary to produce a solution to this crisis, when viewed from the correct, Catholic, "sedevacantist" perspective, then what is required to produce the same result from the perspective of those who think the heretic is pope? A public rally? Lots of letters to the editor of L'Osservatore Romano? Secret negotiations with the Satanists who inhabit the formerly-Catholic buildings of the Vatican? A NATO bombing campaign? Clearly a miracle is required to produce the restoration of Holy Church, whether one views the Holy See as vacant or not. The assertion is made that the Church must use whatever means were laid down by the last true pope - in this case let us assume these are the rules as codified by Pope Pius XII. Many of these are divine law, and cannot be changed. However many others are ecclesiastical law, and therefore can be set aside by application of the principle of epikeia. Readers of SSPX journals will be well aware of this principle - it is invoked frequently by the Society when they see the need to break ecclesiastical law, and generally this is quite appropriate. Why is it that epikeia is suddenly out of bounds on matters which all authorities agree are ecclesiastical law?

Now it is my position that the Society of St. Pius X errs most gravely in a number of ways. Firstly, it asserts, against all of tradition, that a heretic can be pope. Secondly, to maintain this fiction it employs "theology" and "law" which can only be described as self-serving. Certainly it is not clear where their ideas come from - they certainly are not drawn from the best authorities. Thirdly, while stating publicly that "sedevacantism" is a legitimate theological opinion - something only a liar or an ignoramus could deny - they extend themselves in the effort to ensure that as many Catholics as possible do not actually take that view. Why is this so? Is it, or is it not, a legitimate Catholic position? They have said it is. And yet, they proceed as follows:


The fact is the SSPX seem to have trouble distinguishing between certainty and authority. Certainty in such matters is not only possible, but I suggest that in the circumstances it is relatively easy to achieve. We are faced with a man who espouses outrageous heresies such as universal salvation, that non-Catholic sects can be means of salvation, that Moslems and Jews pray to the true God together with us, that the Jews are his elder brothers in the faith, and that the devastation of Holy Church in the last forty years is a New Pentecost. Numerous other examples can be presented. Recently he denied that hell is a place, in the face of Tradition, asserting that in fact it is a "state of mind." There is no room for a presumption of pertinacity - the case is proved. If there was any doubt remaining before 1988, he certainly removed it by declaring excommunicate two prominent witnesses to the faith, against himself.

If certainty is impossible to achieve without true authority, or jurisdiction, then what basis does the Society have for deciding marriage cases? Are the SSPX marrying people they are not certain are eligible? But prescinding from this confusion over the role of authority, on the principles here stated by the SSPX there is no reasonable basis for cutting off communion with those who hold this "theological opinion." Either "sedevacantists" are Catholics or they are not. Either they are a danger to the faith of other Catholics or they are not. If they are a danger, then why is this not specified? Don't they care to educate their flock?

The truth is that while each Catholic does indeed need to make decisions regarding the faith, by reading good books published before the current disaster, speaking with well-educated priests and laymen, and praying for the grace to see clearly, it is absurd to pretend that there is some difference in this matter between the "sedevacantists" and the SSPX. If the SSPX believe they enjoy true spiritual authority in Holy Church (i.e. "jurisdiction") then they had better admit it in public, instead of consistently denying it as they do. And if they admit they have no such thing, then how is a member of the faithful who attends an SSPX chapel in a different position from one who attends a "sedevacantist" chapel? What "spiritual superiors" does such a Catholic "recognise" that a "sedevacantist" would reject? Why is a "sedevacantist" any more his own "pope" than an SSPX-follower? The answer is, he is not. That the judgement against Wojtyla has led some "sedevacantists" to treat others "with temerity" is regrettable. Only authority can make it obligatory for all to accept that Wojtyla is not pope. It does however raise the question - what is the above-defined treatment of "sedevacantists" if not the very definition of temerity?

We are here at the heart of what I believe to be the core difficulty faced by the SSPX in dealing with the "sedevacantist" fact. And that is that their Catholic sense tells them that the Church is visible, and as such has limits, or "edges." But because they simply refuse to face the real issues involved in this question, and address it with sound theology drawn from Catholic sources, they are left in an awful limbo of uncertainty. Where are the edges of Holy Church? Where is she? They can't answer that. To do so would involve defining Holy Church in the classical way, as Van Noort and Lercher do - and that would leave Karol Wojtyla out of the picture. But the Catholic sense is gnawing. And the way it is satisfied is to make the SSPX the de facto Church.

St. Augustine: "And yet, if within the Church different men still held different opinions on the point, without meanwhile violating peace, then till some one clear and simple decree should have been passed by an universal Council, it would have been right for the charity which seeks for unity to throw a veil over the error of human infirmity, as it is written 'For charity covers a multitude of sins.' For, seeing that its absence causes the presence of all other things to be of no avail, we may well suppose that in its presence there is found pardon for the absence of some missing things." ("On Baptism Against the Donatists" Bk 1)

The SSPX and others will likely prefer to blame the "sedevacantists" for any violations of peace which have occurred over the past twenty years or so. But anybody familiar with the history of this question knows that until a decision was made by the SSPX hierarchy, circa 1980, to take a dogmatic stand against "sedevacantism", there was a far greater degree of peace among traditional Catholics. Perhaps we can take heart from the noticeable softening in the SSPX stand of recent times. In the past "sedevacantists" were schismatics, no "ifs", no "buts". Now they are spiritually proud, each their own "pope", and still vitandus. But at least, it appears, they are Catholics. But perhaps this should not be cause for too much joy - after all, if Karol Wojtyla can squeeze into Holy Church, anybody can. Even those Jews and Moslems.

John Lane
Perth, Western Australia
Feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Universal Church.