Last Saturday morning, I spoke to Jeff, a hard-core conservative in the Novus Ordo world, who told me that he was a big fan of John Paul 2 and Steubenville University. I was told he was a walking Catholic encyclopedia that could give an answer to sedevacantism. Not only had he never heard of sedevacantism, his one quote from our entire exchange was from the 3rd grade Baltimore Catechism on salvation.
After showing him all the heretical teachings from his Vatican 2 popes, he told us that religious assent must only be given to dogmas ignoring the fact that popes can’t teach heresy regardless.
When we quoted Pope Pius IX’s Quanta Cura on the pope’s plenary power and giving assent to more than just dogmas, [1] he doubled-down and told us he didn’t have to give religious assent to Pope Pius IX’s teaching. How ironic that he would deny the very document that points to a dogma he’s rejecting, condemns what he’s saying as he’s implying the Baltimore Catechism holds more theological weight than Quanta cura and Vatican I’s definition of the pope’s plenary power.
Then I told him about John Paul 2’s (his favorite pope) teaching on religious assent from his 1993 Catechism of the Catholic Church:
892 Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and, in a particular way, to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a “definitive manner,” they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals. To this ordinary teaching the faithful “are to adhere to it with religious assent”422 which, though distinct from the assent of faith, is nonetheless an extension of it.
Footnote 422 is reference to Lumen Gentium 25 of Vatican 2.
He was done and ready to go after that.
Yesterday, my younger brother made the same argument. He’s an anything but sedevacantist guy who told me that the pope can deviate from the faith with heresy when teaching with non-dogmatic teaching. I told him, what I told Jeff. I quoted 892 from their catechism and said, “You don’t even follow your own religion. So you become the pope’s pope to determine when your pope deviates from the faith that you may NOT give religious assent?”
My brother doubled-down and quoted Cum ex Apostolatus from Pope Paul IV:
“The Roman Pontiff, who is the representative upon earth of God and our God and Lord Jesus Christ, who holds the fulness of power over peoples and kingdoms, who may judge all and be judged by none in this world, may nonetheless be contradicted if he be found to have deviated from the Faith.”
He continued to tell me the quote means the pope doesn’t automatically lose office if he deviates from the faith.
Apparently, my brother thinks Pope Paul IV is teaching that we are to be the pope’s pope when the pope uses his mere ordinary magisterium.
Pope Paul IV is not saying or implying that a pope can deviate from the faith in official documents whereby each person in the Church can decide when to contradict his official teaching. The context is that a pope who deviates from the faith (not in official documents) ceases to be pope, which is why he can be contradicted. [2] Bellarmine says the same thing. [3] Pope Paul IV also tells us in the document that heretics can’t become popes to begin with, which is the application of sedevacantism today.
Jeff, my brother, and all those like them go much further against Pope Pius IX’s condemnations, because they actually withhold assent to judgments and decrees of the Apostolic See that do touch upon dogmas of faith and morals. They reject the teachings from what they claim comes from an ecumenical council ratified by a pope.
They ultimately believe each Catholic is to be the pope’s pope when their pope isn’t defining a dogma. That’s their fatal flaw. They forget that Christ gave us a pope to keep the Church from deviating from Christianity, not the other way around. They should take note of what St. Robert Bellarmine rightly taught:
The Pope is the Teacher and Shepherd of the whole Church, thus, the whole Church is so bound to hear and follow him that if he would err, the whole Church would err.
Now our adversaries respond that the Church ought to hear him so long as he teaches correctly, for God must be heard more than men.
On the other hand, who will judge whether the Pope has taught rightly or not? For it is not for the sheep to judge whether the shepherd wanders off, not even and especially in those matters which are truly doubtful. Nor do Christian sheep have any greater judge or teacher to whom they might have recourse. As we showed above, from the whole Church one can appeal to the Pope yet, from him no one is able to appeal; therefore necessarily the whole Church will err if the Pontiff would err. (De Romano Pontifice, Book IV, Chapter 3; Grant translation.)
Looking at the Vatican 2 church with its heresies on religious liberty to the death penalty, its evil practices of altar girls to giving Communion to non-Catholics and those living in mortal sin, from the acceptance of homosexuality to the hideous architecture of churches, from their liberal clerics promoting abominations to their most conservative believers having to reject magisterial teaching is proof enough that the Vatican 2 religion is not Catholic. Therefore, their popes can’t be true popes. They must reject Catholicism to save their Vatican 2 religion. In rejecting their papal teachings and criticizing how awful and divided their church is, they bear witness to the truth of sedevacantism despite themselves.
Footnotes
[1] “And, we cannot pass over in silence the boldness of those who “not enduring sound doctrine” [II Tim. 4:3], contend that “without sin and with no loss of Catholic profession, one can withhold assent and obedience to those judgments and decrees of the Apostolic See, whose object is declared to relate to the general good of the Church and its right and discipline, provided it does not touch dogmas of faith or morals.” There is no one who does not see and understand clearly and openly how opposed this is to the Catholic dogma of the plenary power divinely bestowed on the Roman Pontiff by Christ the Lord Himself of feeding, ruling, and governing the universal Church…Therefore, by our Apostolic authority, we reprobate, proscribe, and condemn all the singular and evil opinions and doctrines severally mentioned in this letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly held by all children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and condemned.” (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, Dec 8, 1864.)
[2] Cum ex Apostolatus Officio (strobertbellarmine.net)
[3] Therefore, the true opinion is the fifth, according to which the 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 reasonhe can be judged and punished by the Church.
This and several other of your posts would be nice to keep handy for reference when discussing such matters with hardheads who think they have all the answers. Thanks for a great article.
It is the Holy Ghost that draws souls to Sedevacantism. Without the Holy Ghost there to guide us the most learned of people deceive themselves. Protestants Scholars go to Universities that teach heresy but for all their leaning they don’t see it. The Vatican II adherents see their false religion rejecting Christ and the Catholic Church but they are chained to it. They disregard all the “Hootnanny” cheese head clown gatherings that is on the surface of this antichrist heresy and follow their false religion false popes and false doctrine without questioning any of it. I believe that it is pride and bad will that chains most all to false religions .I doubt that few in the Vatican II cult have spent time reciting the Rosary asking Our Lady for wisdom on the matter because they seem to believe they already know the truth and don’t need any intervention from Heaven.