Sedevacantism

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Sede vacante coat of arms, used when there is no reigning pope.
Sede vacante coat of arms, used when there is no reigning pope.

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 successors (or, in their view, 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, legitimate popes.

The term "sedevacantism" is derived from the Latin phrase sede vacante, which literally means "while the seat is vacant", the seat in question being the official chair of a bishop (referred to also as his cathedra). The phrase thus refers to a vacancy of an episcopal see.[1] In the context of this article, the see of the phrase "sede vacante" is that of the Bishop of Rome, which sedevacantists claim remains vacant or unoccupied, just as it is universally recognized to be vacant from a Pope's death or resignation to the election of his successor.[2]

Some groups of traditionalist Catholics give allegiance to alternative Popes of their own choosing instead of the generally recognized Popes, resulting in an open schism. Since they hold that the See of Rome is headed by their nominee and thus is not in fact vacant, they are not sedevacantists in the strict sense. However, the term "sedevacantist" is often applied to them because, in order to proceed to select their own Pope, they had first to declare that the Holy See had become vacant. Another term for them is "conclavist".

Contents

[edit] Early history

One of the earliest proponents of sedevacantism - perhaps the earliest - was Francis Schuckardt, an American layman and a leader in the Blue Army. In the late 1960s (or, according to one source, in around 1970 [1]), Schuckardt publicly took the position that the papacy was vacant and that the Church that had emerged from the Second Vatican Council contradicted earlier magisterial teaching. An associate of his, Daniel Q. Brown, had arrived at the same conclusion. Schuckardt subsequently received episcopal orders and founded the Tridentine Latin Rite Catholic Church.

Another founding figure of sedevacantism was Fr. Joaquin Saenz Arriaga, a Jesuit theologian from Mexico. In August 1971, independently of Schuckardt, Saenz published the book The New Montinian Church, which argued that Pope Paul VI had founded a new religion distinct from Roman Catholicism. In his 1973 book Sede Vacante, Saenz stated that Paul VI had forfeited his papal authority though public and manifest heresy, a position which he had reportedly held for some time. Saenz's writings gave rise to the sedevacantist movement in Mexico, led by Saenz, Fr. Moises Carmona and Fr. Adolfo Zamora, and also inspired Fr. Francis E. Fenton in the United States.

Other priests may have arrived at the sedevacantist position independently in the years following the Second Vatican Council. These may have included the Dominican theologian Fr. Michel Louis Guérard des Lauriers (who developed a thesis similar to sedevacantism called sedeprivationism in the 1970s), the English parish priest Fr. Oswald Baker (who was a sedevacantist at least by 1984,[2] and reportedly some time before that), and the American missionary Fr. Lucian Pulvermacher, who subsequently became Antipope Pius XIII.

[edit] The sedevacantist position

As with traditionalist Catholicism in general, sedevacantism owes its origins to the rejection of the theological and disciplinary changes implemented following the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Sedevacantists thus reject the Council, claiming that its documents on ecumenism and religious liberty contradict the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church and deny the unique mission of Catholicism as the one true religion, outside of which there is no salvation. They also say that new disciplinary norms, such as the Mass of Paul VI, promulgated on 3 April 1969, undermine or conflict with the historical Catholic faith.

Unlike other traditionalist Catholics, who continue to recognise the authority of Pope Paul VI and his successors and who, while in some cases acknowledging that these Popes have held and taught unorthodox beliefs, but stop short of affirming that they have been formal heretics or have been widely and publicly judged to be heretics, sedevacantists claim that the infallible Magisterium of the Catholic Church could not have decreed the changes made in the name of the Second Vatican Council, and conclude that those who issued these changes cannot have been acting with the authority of the Catholic Church. Accordingly, they hold that Pope Paul VI and his successors left the true Catholic Church and thus lost legitimate authority in the Church. A formal heretic, they say, cannot be the Catholic Pope.

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 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. Brian Harrison of Puerto Rico, 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[3].

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.

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, France and Australia, but the actual size of the sedevacantist movement has never been accurately assessed. (See further the section on statistics in the article Traditionalist Catholic.)

Catholic doctrine has taught that the four marks of the true Church are that it is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, and sedevacantists base their claim to be the true remnant Roman Catholic Church on what they see as the presence in them of these four "marks", absent, they say, in the Church since the Second Vatican Council. Their critics counter by saying that sedevacantists are in fact not one, forming numerous splinter groups, each of them in disagreement with the others.

[edit] Bishops

Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục
Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục

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.

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."[4]


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.

[edit] Conclavism

Pope Pius XIII of the "true Catholic Church"
Pope Pius XIII of the "true Catholic Church"

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.

[edit] Criticism

Mainstream Catholics advance against sedevacantism arguments such as:

  • According to standard Catholic doctrine, the Catholic Church is a visible identifiable body that is literally catholic, in the sense of universal ('for all people'). This is seen as incompatible with the sedevacantist claim that the true nature of the Catholic Church has been hidden from the world for half a century.
  • The 1870 Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus of the First Vatican Council reaffirmed that "it has always been necessary 'for every Church - that is to say the faithful throughout the world - to be in agreement with (the Roman Church) because of its pre-eminent authority" and that consequently the bishop whom the Church in Rome acknowledges as its head "is the successor of blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, true vicar of Christ, head of the whole Church and father and teacher of all Christian people. To him, in blessed Peter, full power has been given by our lord Jesus Christ to tend, rule and govern the universal Church." This is seen as incompatible with the sedevacantist claim that the papal line of succession has been broken since 1958 (or 1963).
  • The Catholic doctrine of the indefectibility of the Church, which appeals to Christ's promise to the Apostle Peter in Matthew 16:18 ("You are Peter (the Rock), and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it") excludes the possibility that the Catholic bishops around the world and the Pope with whom they are in communion would succumb to heresy and fall from office.
  • They say that sedevacantists wrongly treat certain papal statements of the past as if they were ex cathedra declarations.
  • They claim that sedevacantists fail to distinguish between matters of discipline — such as the use of Latin and of the Tridentine Mass — which can be reformed at any time, and infallible dogmatic teachings.
  • They say that sedevacantists indulge in the logical fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc when they attribute problems that the Church has experienced in the Western world since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council to the reforms themselves rather than to the general decrease in religiosity in the West.

Sedevacantists advance counter-arguments, such as:

  • They deny that they implicitly repudiate the dogma of papal infallibility as defined at the First Vatican Council, and maintain that, on the contrary, 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.
  • To rebut the accusation of denying the catholicity and indefectibility of the Church, they say that, between the death of every Pope and the election of his successor, there is a sede vacante period during which there is no visible Head of the Church, and — while mainstream Catholics hold that, according to the dogmatic constitution Pastor aeternus of the First Vatican Council, which speaks of "perpetual successors" in the pontificate, there must be, apart from such transitory periods, a perpetual presence of the Bishop of Rome, not merely of his office — that the absence of a Pope has now become a permanent feature of the Church's structure.
  • They recall that, during the 40-year Great Western Schism, while nobody claimed that the see of Rome was vacant, there was uncertainty about which of the two (eventually three) claimants was the true pontiff, with even canonized saints taking opposing sides in the controversy. In his 1882 book, The Relations of the Church to Society - Theological Essays, the Jesuit theologian, Father Edmund James O'Reilly, wrote: "... not that an interregnum covering the whole period would have been impossible or inconsistent with the promises of Christ, for this is by no means manifest."[5]
  • They interpret the Book of Revelation as speaking of an end-times Great Apostasy on the City of Seven Hills (Rome) and say that Our Lady of La Salette warned on 19 September 1846 that Rome would lose the faith and become the seat of the Anti-Christ.

[edit] Sedevacantist groups

[edit] Conclavist groups

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Sedevacantist sites

[edit] Criticism

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ On the word "see", consult The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition, 2000
  2. ^ "Sede vacante" has also been translated, rather literally, as "empty throne": the September 2005 English edition of the magazine 30Giorni had "the so-called 'empty throne' people" as a translation of "i cosiddetti 'sedevacantisti'" in the original Italian text.
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