Louie Verrecchio has recently posted a charitable article against the position of sedevacantism on his website AKA Catholic here.
I sent him the following letter to his contact information info@akacatholic.com
Dear Louie,
I appreciate the thoughtfulness and charitable article that you’ve written on your position against sedevacantism. I can even read a tone of love for your sedevacantist neighbors. Thank you!
I’m one that holds to the position of sedevacantism and have written many articles against Salza and Siscoe on the subject so I’m very familiar with the arguments. Please forgive me if my bluntness comes across as uncharitable. I don’t mean it that way at all.
I would like to note that when canon law was promulgated in the 20th century, the entire warning system to determine formal heresy exists only in the Penal Code. Popes don’t fall under this part of canon law, therefore, warnings against popes, are meaningless insofar as the law is concerned.
Even for clergy who do fall under the penal code, formal heresy is presumed by law. The canonists spell out when, how, and to whom warnings are given.As far as the law is concerned with popes and their office, canon 188.4 covers it. According to that law which is not a penalty, a pope who publicly defects from the faith which is defined by the law as public heresy or joining another religion, tacitly resigns from office WITHOUT declaration.
You state: It is now up to the so-called “proper authorities” to issue a formal declaration making this “known to all the Church” for precisely the reason given by Fr. Ballerini – “so that he might not cause damage to the rest” – and to go about making arrangements for a conclave to elect a new pope.
But hasn’t the rest already been damaged by the Vatican 2 popes? Heresy is everywhere and it all can be traced right back to the Vatican 2 popes with their decrees, practices, promotions, and omissions.
F.X. Wernz, P. Vidal (1943): “Through notorious and openly revealed heresy, the Roman Pontiff, should he fall into heresy, by that very fact is deemed to be deprived of the power of jurisdiction even before any declaratory judgment of the Church…” (Ius Canonicum. Rome: Gregorian 1943. 2:45.)
Udalricus Beste (1946): “Not a few canonists teach that, outside of death and abdication, the pontifical dignity can also be lost by falling into certain insanity, which is legally equivalent to death, as well as through manifest and notorious heresy. In the latter case, a pope would automatically fall from his power, and this indeed without the issuance of any sentence, for the first See [i.e., the See of Peter] is judged by no one. (Introductio in Codicem. 3rd ed. Collegeville: St. John’s Abbey Press 1946. Canon 221)
Again, Wernz/Vidal: The fourth opinion, with Suarez, Cajetan and others [John of St. Thomas, Fr. Laymann, etc.], contends that a Pope is not automatically deposed even for manifest heresy, but that he can and must be deposed by at least a declaratory sentence of the crime. “Which opinion in my judgment is indefensible” as Bellarmine teaches. Finally, there is the fifth opinion – that of Bellarmine himself – which was expressed initially and is rightly defended by Tanner and others as the best proven and the most common. For he who is no longer a member of the body of the Church, i.e. the Church as a visible society, cannot be the head of the Universal Church. But a Pope who fell into public heresy would cease by that very fact to be a member of the Church. Therefore he would also cease by that very fact to be the head of the Church.
Thank you for your time!
God bless you!
Steven Speray
Louis, as do other “Recognize and resister” bloggers, have a vested interest in maintaining their stance. They are impervious to the teachings of Saints, Doctors of the Church, theologians, Vatican I and even Popes when it comes to automatic loss of office for committing formal heresy. He could never debate the point – he just banned me from his blog for being sedevacantist.,
The Sedevacantist position is the only one a Catholic can follow and still follow the Church. Many devout Catholics were very confused during the 1960’s and distance themselves from the Vatican II sect. They looked to the Pope to “right” the ship of state and return it to the course Christ gave it. when this didn’t happen and after a little bit of study many believed the visible Church had been taken over by antichrist factions and refused to conform to the “New Spring” that the sect had demanded they except. No one believed that this chastisement would last 60 years but it has many have found Cathlocism in small enclaves many still wait for the Holy Catholic Church to reclaim Her rightful place and property. Catholics have been forced into this position, it is one that no one wanted but the only one Catholics can hold.
After going to Mr. Verreecio website I found his diatribe grating. He was too cowardly to open his website to comments. I could understand if someone is abusive but like the Dimond brothers on the other side of the fence, they can’t stand an opinion or fact that doesn’t conform to their personal position. As with Protestantism, Vatican II has only brought division. I don’t think Verreecio would stir in his opinion even if Bergoglio sacrifice a pig on a Novus Ordo altar. I have wondered why the Chastisement has lasted so long. With so many Verreecio types around, I’m afraid it will not end for a long time.
Thank you for this handy list of references.
I have used the term “Canute Catholic” to refer to someone who believes he possesses the power to turn back the tide of false doctrine sweeping the “Church” by sheer force of his own will, rather than admitting that the true Church, like the real tide, is the creation of God, and cannot therefore be false.
Thus, by force of will, the Canute Catholic “turns back” the non-infallible teaching of the pope, even though, when the latter speaks (whether ex cathedra or not) as universal teacher and judge to Catholics the world over, he binds all Catholics.
With even greater ease does the Canute Catholic “roll back” the work of Catholic scholars such as those quoted above, in order to protect his “pope”, from whom, in turn, he needs to protect the “Church”.
Ehh I think the whole “what to do with a heretical pope” question is a distraction. I think Roncalli was probably a pre-election heretic and couldn’t have been elected in the first place in 1958. Or, if sedes prove V2 is heretical, there are questions about if Paul VI was a pope who fell in to heresy (sedeplenism/SSPX generally), or became a half-pope then (sedeprivationism) or became a non-pope (sedevacantism). However beyond Paul VI, JP1 would be a pre-election heretic incapable of being elected if he accepted V2 and V2 was heretical. So from then on sedevacantism should be the clear answer, they couldn’t have become popes so the whole question of “what to do with a heretical pope” wouldn’t apply (there might only be a question with Paul VI).
However my bigger problem is I don’t believe V2 is proven to be heretical or any of the alleged “heresies” of pre-election statements of Roncalli or other V2 “popes”. I do believe this will be found though, or some other way of showing they could not have become popes.
Vatican 2 has been proven heretical many, many times.
One more thing to add, can’t post on the blog you’re referring to, he says: “Francis is utterly unique with respect to the faithful’s ability to recognize him as a formal, notorious, pertinacious heretic.”
See, my challenge is I don’t think anyone has proven a single statement of Francis to be heretical. Yeah, it’s getting more dramatic under him but they always use weasel words and ambiguities. I definitely don’t think he is a Catholic pope but I think there still work to do in establishing this with certainty.
What? He’s a blaspheming heretic. His acts are acts of apostasy, too.
Touche
YOU SAID :
But hasn’t the rest already been damaged by the Vatican 2 popes? Heresy is everywhere and it all can be traced right back to the Vatican 2 popes with their decrees, practices, promotions, and omissions.
MY RESPONSE :
that is a purely subjective claim at this stage .
Sedevecantism is a heresy unto itself , since it denies the indeffectibility of the church and papacy as promised by Christ .
Regardless of what any Saint or Pope has said in apparent support of the sedevecantist … the sedevecantist is in perpetual error anyway , and cannot escape his dilemma
He has not a leg to stand on .
He must therefore hold his position in hypocrisy
I see that you have not researched the position very well. I’ve addressed those points numerous times. Sedevacantism exists because we Catholics believe in indefectibility. If Francis is truly pope, the gates of hell are running the Church. It’s not merely a subjective claim that heresy is everywhere and it all can be traced right back to the Vat2 popes. They have taught heresy after heresy as I’ve shown. The novus ordo chuch has not a leg to stand on. It doesn’t even have a single mark for the 4 it claims. Ha!