Catholic Candle note: Sedevacantism is wrong and is (material or formal) schism.  Catholic Candle is not sedevacantist.  We recommend a small book explaining the errors of sedevacantism.  It is available:

❖  Here, for free: https://catholiccandle.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/sedevacantism-material-or-formal-schism.pdf

❖  Here, at cost ($4): https://www.amazon.com/Sedevacantism-Material-Quanta-Cura-Press/dp/B08FP5NQR6/ref=sr_1_1

Below is the fourth article in a series which covers specific aspects of the error of sedevacantism.

As context for this fourth article of this series against the error of sedevacantism, let us recall what we saw in the earlier three articles:

In the first article, we saw that we cannot know whether Pope Francis (or anyone else) is a formal heretic (rather than a material heretic only) – and thus whether he is outside the true Catholic Church – based simply on his persistent, public teaching of a heretical opinion.[1]

Then in the second article, we saw that we must not judge a man to be a formal heretic if he professes to be Catholic and says he believes what a Catholic must believe now, in order to be Catholic now.  When a person professes a heretical opinion, we must judge him in the most favorable light (if we judge him at all).  So, we must avoid rash judgment and we must not judge negatively the interior culpability of the pope and the 1.2 billion people who profess that they are Catholic.  We must not judge they are not “real” Catholics if they tell us that they are Catholics.[2]

Thus, we must judge Pope Francis to be a material heretic, not a formal heretic, and that he is the pope.  Regarding any of the world’s 1.2 billion self-described Catholics who hold heresy, we must judge them (if we judge them at all) to be material heretics only, unless they themselves tell us that they know they don’t qualify to be Catholics.[3]

In the third article, we examined briefly the important difference between persons in authority who fulfill their duty to judge those under their charge in the external forum, as compared to a sedevacantist or anyone else except God who judges the interior culpability of other persons and (rashly) judges them to be formal heretics.[4]

But we noted at the end of the third article that a person could ask:

If we are   If we are forbidden to judge for ourselves that Pope Francis knows that he is denying the Catholic Faith and knows he does not qualify to be a Catholic;

then

If we are   Are Catholics defenseless against the pope’s heresies, since we cannot declare – “for our own protection” – that he is not the pope?

This question presents the issue of whether our declaring that we have no pope provides us with better protection against his heresies.  We address this issue below.

Protecting Ourselves from Evil without Judging the Pope’s Interior Culpability

We have seen previously that, concerning any person who teaches heresy, we should not judge his interior culpability and declare that he is a formal heretic (and so is not a Catholic).  However, this does not mean we should let him teach catechism to our children.  This is because our children would be equally harmed by his errors, however interiorly blameless the man might be for professing his heresy.

Without judging a person’s interior culpability, we should take into account the person’s wrong-doing (which we must judge objectively).  For, just as when a man is prone to take other people’s umbrellas, we should keep a close eye on our own umbrella (when he is present) even if he innocently took all of those other umbrellas in the past.

Likewise, it is equally important that we warn people to avoid the teachings of anyone who teaches errors against the Faith, regardless of whether he teaches these errors innocently.  We should be wary and warn others about him simply based on his proneness to teach error (heresy), whether he is interiorly culpable or not – that is, whether he is a formal heretic or “only” a material heretic.

This truth applies to how we should regard popes too.  Just as if we had lived during the reign of Pope John XXII (reigned 1316-1334) – who persistently preached a particular heresy both before and during his reign – we would need to be especially vigilant against error with regard to all of his teachings, given that we have one example of his heretical teaching .[5] 

Likewise, since we live during the reign of Pope Francis, we must be especially vigilant with regard to all of his teachings since we know of many examples of his heretical opinions.  But in the case of neither of these popes should we rashly judge that he is a formal heretic and is not a “real” pope.  Instead, we must recognize that both popes are bad popes (in the objective sense of teaching heresy), especially Pope Francis.

Note that neither of these popes taught heresy using the conditions set forth for an ex cathedra infallible pronouncement.[6]  That would be impossible.  The Holy Ghost would never allow a pope to teach error infallibly.  So we know that it could never happen that Pope Francis or any other pope could use his ex cathedra infallible authority to teach error. 

The whole reason for the Church’s infallible assurance that no pope can teach heresy when he teaches ex cathedra, is because under any other conditions a pope CAN teach heresy.  That is, any other statement by any pope is not infallibly guaranteed to be true (by the sole fact that he made the statement)[7].  Such a statement could possibly be heretical.  Pope John XXII and Pope Francis are both examples of a pope teaching heresy (but, of course, not ex cathedra).[8]

Although we should always make sure that any pope’s statements harmonized with the deposit of the Catholic Faith, we should especially be on our guard about the statements made by a pope whom we know to have taught heresy.

But if we were to (rashly) judge the pope (or anyone else) to be interiorly culpable for his heretical opinion (or any other bad thing), this would not help us to protect ourselves any better but would only be our sin of pride.  By our rash judgment we would be raising ourselves in our own esteem and in the esteem of others by concluding that we know that the pope’s soul is lower (as compared to our own soul), than would be the case if his error were innocent and he were not interiorly culpable.[9] 

Follow-up Question: Catholic Candle states that sedevacantism is schism.  Is that an exaggeration or are all sedevacantists schismatics?

That is a good question!  But that topic will have to be addressed at another time.