Dear Louie,
I want to briefly follow up my last letter on why I hold to the position of sedevacantism.
First, I’d like to re-present what I believe to be an irrefutable argument found here: The Gates of Hell and the Gates of Church.
This is a must read.
As I partly demonstrated in the above article, there’s a flip-side to the Chair of Peter argument which concerns the Church itself. Is the religion of the Vatican 2 popes the Catholic religion? See Missing the Marks: The Church of Vatican 2.
There are two basic questions we Catholics (who hold to sedevacantism) ask those who recognize but resist the Vatican 2 popes concerning the marks of the one true Church:
1. How can you claim oneness in faith when you’re divided doctrinally in faith as much as Protestantism?
I’m not talking about a material division where Catholics innocently and mistakenly believe falsely, but a formal division where those claiming to be Catholic knowingly reject doctrines, laws, practices, and a liturgy of their pope. Surely, you don’t believe in the same heresies as your pope?
2. How can you claim holiness in faith when you don’t acknowledge holiness in all promulgated doctrine, law, discipline, and liturgy? Surely, you don’t believe that holiness only concerns dogmas of the Faith?
Again, thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Steven Speray
Speray's Catholicism in a Nutshell 
Steven writes: “a formal division where those claiming to be Catholic knowingly reject doctrines, laws, practices, and a liturgy of their pope”.
The assertion of a “right” to reject the Church’s non-infallible teaching appears to be a critical element, possibly the cornerstone, of the resister’s claim to be in continuity with the Catholic Church. Yet here is another quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia that shows the opposite: namely, the existence of the obligation to assent to such teaching:
“To the right of teaching on the part of the ‘Ecclesia docens’ [the teaching body of the Church] naturally corresponds the obligation of hearing on the part of the ‘Ecclesia discens’ [the hearing body of the Church]. Hearing is meant in the sense of submitting the understanding, and it is of a double nature, according as the teaching is, or is not, done under the guarantee of infallibility. The former submission is called assent of faith, the latter assent of religious obedience“ (from the article on “Science and the Church”, emphases added, here and below).
This next quote, from the same article, makes the same point but with specific reference to the pope:
“With regard to the Church submission of the understanding is especially appropriate, no matter whether she speaks with infallible or with administrative authority, in other words whether the submission is one of faith or one of obedience…. To the teaching that rests directly on the ruling authority only, without the prerogative of infallibility, belong the pastoral letters of bishops, particular diocesan catechisms, decrees of provincial synods, the decisions of Roman Congregations, and many official acts of the pope, even such as are obligatory on the universal Church“.
Just to complete the point with an example of it in practice, I would like to repeat the quote below, which I submitted here recently. On the subject of the binding power of the Syllabus of Pius IX, the Encyclopedia writes:
“There is no agreement…on the question whether each thesis condemned in the Syllabus is infallibly false, merely because it is…in the Syllabus…. [N]evertheless the binding force of the condemnation in regard to all the propositions is beyond doubt. For the Syllabus…is a decision given by the pope speaking as universal teacher and judge to Catholics the world over. All Catholics, therefore, are bound to accept the Syllabus. Exteriorly they may neither in word nor in writing oppose its contents; they must also assent to it interiorly“ (from the article entitled, “Syllabus”, emphases added).
This is sooooooooo good. Thank you.
Steve, hold close to the truth, staying firm with God, he will bless you, Verrecheccio is of the Anti -Christ. His words are sweet but are of dung.