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Sedevacantism

Sedevacantism is a theological position embraced by a minority of Traditionalist Catholics which holds that the papacy has been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958 (or, in some cases, the death of Pope John XXIII in 1963). Sedevacantists believe that the subsequent claimants to the papal office — Paul VI (1963–1978), John Paul I (1978), John Paul II (1978–2005) and Benedict XVI (since 2005) — have been neither true Catholics nor true popes.

The term "sedevacantism" is derived from the Latin phrase sede vacante, which means "while the see is vacant" (in ecclesiastical parlance, a "see," from the Latin sedes, "seat", is the office which a particular bishop exercises). In the case of the See of Rome, the phrase refers to the period between a pope's death or resignation and the election of his successor.

While sedevacantism assumes that there is no reigning pope, groups who have chosen to elect popes of their own are also often called sedevacantist. In reality, this is a self-contradicting use of the term "sedevacantist", since the groups in question claim that the See of Rome is not in fact vacant, having been filled by their pope. They are sometimes described as conclavist but, because they give their allegiance to popes other than those recognized by the Catholic Church, they can more accurately be described as independent Catholic Churches.

Sedevacantism (in the proper sense of the word) and conclavism are thus, by definition, mutually contradictory ideas.

Early history

The earliest known proponents of sedevacantism were Francis Schuckardt, a lay leader in the Blue Army from the United States and Joaquin Saenz Arriaga, a Jesuit theologian from Mexico.

In the late 1960s, Schuckardt publicly took the position that the papacy was vacant and that the Church that emerged after the Second Vatican Council was not Catholic. Schuckardt was later consecrated bishop by a former Old Catholic bishop in 1971 and founded the Tridentine Latin Rite Catholic Church which was headquartered in northern Idaho.

In August 1971, independent of Schuckardt, Saenz published the book The New Montinian Church which said that Pope Paul VI had founded a new religion distinct from Catholicism. In his 1973 Sede Vacante, Saenz stated that Paul VI had forfeited his papal authority though public and manifest heresy. Saenz's writings gave rise to the sedevacantist movement in Mexico, led by Saenz, Moises Carmona and Adolfo Zamora, in the United States, led by Francis E. Fenton, and in France, led by Guerard des Lauriers. Some priests, perhaps including Fenton and des Lauriers, may have arrived at the sedevacantist position independently in the 1960s and 1970s. Other such priests included Oswald Baker in England and Lucian Pulvermacher in Australia.

The sedevacantist position

As with Traditionalist Catholicism in general, sedevacantism owes its origins to the rejection of the theological and disciplinary changes carried out by and following the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Traditionalist Catholics reject the Council primarily because of its teachings on ecumenism and religious liberty, which they claim contradict the traditional teachings 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 Mass of Paul VI, which they feel undermine or conflict with the historic Catholic faith.

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.

Sedevacantists claim that the divinely-guided teaching authority of the Catholic Church could not have decreed the changes of Vatican II, and that those who issued them were hence not acting with the authority of the Catholic Church, and were therefore usurpers of valid ecclesiastical authority. They hold that Pope Paul VI and his successors left the true Catholic Church and consequently lost legitimate authority in the Church.

Claims 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 stipulated 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 Pope Pius XII's conclave legislation permitted excommunicated cardinals to attend, from which he argues that they could also be legitimately elected[1].

Opponents of Harrison have argued that a phrase in Pope Pius XII's legislation "Cardinals who have been deposed or who have resigned, however, are barred and may not be reinstated even for the purpose of voting", though it speaks of someone deposed or resigned from the cardinalate, not of someone who may have incurred automatic excommunication but has not been officially declared excommunicated, means that, even if someone is permitted to attend, that does not automatically translate into electability.

Some have also argued that Sedevacantism is similar to Protestantism in as much as there are numerous disparate groups that do not even agree with each other.

There are estimated to be between several tens of thousands and more than two hundred thousands of sedevacantists worldwide, mostly concentrated in the United States, Mexico and Australia, but the actual 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 Roman Catholic Church on what they see as the presence of these four "marks", rather than on their numbers.

Bishops

Ordinations performed by sedevacantist bishops are usually 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 baptized man, though some hold that the ordination must be for the service of an existing Christian community. Ordinations within the sedevacantist movement are, however, performed contrary to the wishes and procedures of the "official" Church, and are hence regarded as illicit or illegal. Indeed, a bishop who consecrates another man as a bishop without papal mandate incurs automatic excommunication. Canon law permits Catholics to receive 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 defected to the sedevacantist position. Within this category fell the Vietnamese archbishop Ngô Ðình Thuc (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 allegedly embraced sedevacantism, despite his association with the non-sedevacantist Society of St. Pius X. 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 Ngô Ðình Thuc or Bishop Mendez, or by bishops consecrated by them. The so-called "Thuc line" of consecrations is particularly complicated, since Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc consecrated a considerable number of men (eleven) to the episcopate, and these in turn consecrated many more men.

The Holy See has declared devoid of canonical effect the consecration ceremony conducted by Archbishop Ngô for the Carmelite Order of the Holy Face group at midnight of 31 December 1975, though it refrained from pronouncing on the validity of those consecrations. It made the same statement with regard also to later ordinations by those bishops, saying that, "as for those who have already thus unlawfully received ordination or any who may yet accept ordination from these, whatever may be the validity of the orders (quidquid sit de ordinum validitate), the Church does not and will not recognize their ordination (ipsorum ordinationem), and will consider them, for all legal effects, as still in the state in which they were before, except that the… penalties remain until they repent" (Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Decree Episcopi qui alios of 17 September 1976 — Acta Apostolicae Sedis 1976, page 623). A similar declaration was issued with regard to Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo's ordination of four men as bishops on 24 September 2006: two days later, the Holy See stated not only that all five involved were automatically excommunicated in accordance with canon 1382 of the Code of Canon Law, but also that "the Church does not recognize and does not intend to recognize in future these ordinations or any ordinations derived from them and holds that the canonical status of the four alleged bishops is that in which they were before the ordination."[2]

One Palmarian Catholic Church bishop, Michael Cox, who traced his consecration to Archbishop Ngô (who had consecrated the bishop who consecrated Cox), claimed to ordain Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor as a priestess, and 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.

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 very tiny True Catholic Church (Conclavists) fall into this category.

Conclavism

As noted above, some groups have put forward their own popes in opposition to those in Rome, making them "conclavists" rather than "sedevacantists".

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 Father 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.

As stated above, sedevacantists are opposed to conclavism.

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

Criticism

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 counter-arguments that 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.

Main groups

  • Society of St. Pius V, formed when nine priests of the Society of St. Pius X split from that organisation over the issue of sedevacantism. The SSPV holds sedevacantism as a probable opinion and as a topic of legitimate debate.
  • The Ngô Ðình Thuc Pierre Martin lines of episcopal succession
  • Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen (holds John XXIII to have been the last legitimate Roman Pontiff until today)

Main conclavist groups

See also

External links

Sedevacantist sites

Criticism

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