Sedevacantism is the extreme "radtrad" belief that there is no legitimate pope. It means literally in Latin, "the seat is vacant." Perhaps the most famous current exponent is Gerry Matatics.
* * *
"HABEMUS PAPAM"? by Karl Keating (This Rock, July/August 1995)
White Smoke, Valid Pope, by Rev. Brian Harrison, O.S. (This Rock, March 2001)
Do-It-Yourself Popes: The Wacky World of Sedevacantists, by Michael Petek (This Rock, March 2000)
Mr. X, by Karl Keating (This Rock, June 1995)
The Errors of Sedevacantism and Ecclesiastical Law, by John Salza
A Heretical Pope? (Michael Davies)
A Refutation of the Heresy of Sedevacantism (Shawn McElhinney)
***
.gif)
3 comments:
Thank you so much for posting this, Dave! God bless you and your apostolate!
I am sorry, this cannot be true. Everyone knows Pope B16 is an apostate and, therefore, not a valid Pope.
That would be me. Kiss my ring!
:-)
A comment I made over on my Facebook page:
I agree that it is the logical step down the road if these guys (Sungenis and Salza in particular) keep bashing popes, councils, Holy Church herself, etc. That is what I have been maintaining about Sungenis, and anyone who is radtrad is in danger of it. I have personally witnessed the downward path in Mario Derksen and Gerry Matatics. In the former case, I warned him (over ten years ago) and he kept going further and further out. People didn't believe it would happen, and it did. And it can again in both these cases. The logic is inexorable:
1) Popes can sometimes err non-magisterially in their public pronouncements (the orthodox position and my own).
2) This pope massively errs (implicit assumption: I know about and interpret traditional theology better than he does).
3) This pope is more heterodox than orthodox, and anti-traditional.
4) This pope is an outright heretic.
5) How can the Church, led by the Holy Spirit, be led by such a man?
6) Hence, I question the whole system and deny that all the "popes" since 1958 (blah blah blah) really WERE popes at all . . .
Bob [Sungenis] seems to be at this point at #3 (certainly with JPII and possibly soon with BXVI) or between #3 and #4. If he moves from #4 to #5 it is a very slippery slope to #6.
The further one goes down the "radtrad" road, generally the less fruitful and constructive apologetics they write (if they had done so before). This is the sad thing. It's how the devil will take out a zealous apologist and make him far more a force against the Church than in favor. Divide and conquer. It's one of the saddest things to observe in the apologetics world. Extremely sad . . .
Radtrads generally don't have enough time to share the fullness of the faith and the gospel any longer. They're too busy lying and bashing popes and Church and Vatican II and the new Mass and ecumenism. Who has time to try to bring in more converts? Hence they won't even critique and refute errors in Protestantism that they continue to think are wrong and dangerous. Instead, it is all attack of Catholic things: as if they were Protestant anti-Catholics or liberal dissidents. They become anti-Catholic Catholics.
I have long since noted this, and there really is no good answer to it from those who have placed themselves in such a ludicrous position.
Post a Comment