Catholic Candle note: Sedevacantism is wrong and is (material or formal) schism.  Catholic Candle is not sedevacantist. 

Below is the seventh article in a series which covers specific aspects of the error of sedevacantism.  As context for this seventh article, let us recall what we saw in the earlier six 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 the sin of 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.  Instead, we should count them as Catholics who are very confused.[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 contrasted 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] 

In the fourth article, we saw that it does not help us to protect ourselves better from Pope Francis’ heresy by declaring that he is not the pope.[5]

In the fifth article, we saw that it is possible for a pope to teach (or believe) heresy and, in fact, popes have taught and believed heresy at various times during Church history.[6] 

In the sixth article, we saw that the Church infallibly assures us that we will have a pope at all times until the end of the world, except during very short interregnums between papal reigns, during which the Church is in the process of electing a new pope and during which the Church’s unified government continues to function.[7]

Below, in the seventh article of this series, we see that the Catholic Church is a visible Body and will be visible to all.  The Catholic Church has a visible monarchical government and the pope is visible to all.  Thus, we know we have a pope and that he is visible to all.

The Catholic Church Will Always be Visible, and Will Always Have a Pope Who is Visible to All

From the preceding articles, we know that we must have a pope.  There are a few tiny dispersed groups who so despise the pope in the Vatican, that they concoct theories that there is a hidden pope, whom only their tiny “elite” “knows” about or “knows” is the pope.

These tiny “elite” groups are disunited in their views about who the hidden “pope” is.  Some hold that he lives in a farmhouse in Kansas.  Others claim that the “pope” is in Montana, Croatia, Argentina, Kenya, Spain or elsewhere.  Each of these “popes” is “known” and recognized only by his own tiny group.

The Catholic Church is Visible and will Always be Visible.

But we know from our catechism that the Catholic Church will always be visible.  This is why Pope Pius XI declared that:

The one true Church of Christ is visible to all.

Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928. ¶10. 

Pope Leo XIII identified the cause of this visibility:

The Church is visible because She is a Body.

Satis Cognitum, ¶3. 

Pope Pius XII affirmed this same truth, quoting these words of Pope Leo XIII.  Mystici Corporis Christi, §14.

St. Francis de Sales replied to his adversaries who “would maintain that the Church is invisible and unperceivable” that he “consider[ed] that this is the extreme of absurdity, and that immediately beyond this abide frenzy and madness.”  He then proceeds to discuss at length eight clear proofs that the Church is always visible.    Catholic Controversy, Part 1, Ch. 5.

Thus, because the Catholic Church will always be a body, she will always be visible.

This visibility of the Catholic Church shows that the Catholic Church has a visible head.  We will discuss this in the next section of this article.  But the visibility of the Catholic Church also shows that the sedevacantists are wrong in their claim that the 1.2 billion persons who claim that they themselves are Catholic are, in fact, not “real” Catholics and that only the sedevacantists’ own tiny group are the “real” Catholics.  The truth is that the sedevacantists are rashly judging those confused Catholics.  By contrast, faithful and informed Catholics do not declare that those 1.2 billion self-described Catholics are not “really” Catholics.[8]

This Visible Church will Always have a Visible Government with a Visible Head.

Because the Church will always be visible, and because unity of government is an element of the Mark of Unity[9] by which the Church can always be known, the Church will always have a visible government, so that the true Church can be recognized by this Mark of Unity of Government.  

Because the Church’s government is visible and monarchical, “the Church, being a visible body, must have a visible head and centre of unity.”[10]  This is obviously true.  For the Church is not one, with a visible government, if it is unknown “who is in charge”.  In fact, governing authority is the efficient cause giving unity as one body to any society of men.[11] 

For there is not one visible society if it consists of men united only by ideas and not by a unified, visible government.  That is why even basic catechisms teach us that the Catholic Church is “under one visible head.”[12]

Such a visible head has always been necessary, but even more evidently so as the Catholic Church spread throughout the world.[13]  That is why Pope Pius XII sums up Catholic teaching by declaring that “it is absolutely necessary that the Supreme Head, that is, the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, be visible to the eyes of all”.[14]

Conclusion of this Article

We have no assurance that the pope will be holy or will govern well.  We have no assurance that the pope’s words and deeds will not be shocking and repulsive.  However, we do know that the Catholic Church is a visible body and that her head, the pope, is visible to all.  Thus, the pope is not living unknown and hidden from the attention of the world, in some Kansas farmhouse or similar place. 

Further, it is clear that the pope is also not someone such as Cardinal Siri (whom a tiny group had supposed to have been a secret pope).  Such a supposed “pontificate” was not visible.  In other words, he was not the pope who is “visible to the eyes of all”.  Mystici Corporis, ¶69.

Thus, we must have a pope who, as pope, is visible to all.  In other words, who the pope is, is not a secret.  The pope’s identity is known to all, however bad he is.  As of March 5, 2025 (the date of this article), that pope is Francis, although as of this date, he is in the hospital and possibly near death.